Those of you who read this little blog of mine will know that myself and my partner are lucky enough to be owned by a Cane Corso called Blue, we adopted Blue over 6yrs ago and she has become a very integral part of our lives, its because of her we’ve met so many nice people in Manchester, she’s a great ice breaker so to speak.

She’s a regular sight in South Manchester, you’ll see her with her head stuck out of the car window doing some Pro Ear Surfing and barking at people as she whizzes pass, she’s even helped to advertise a Chorlton Bars Sunday Lunch and had her face plastered on Beer Mats, everyone in Chorlton knows her I should think, or if they don’t they’ve definitely seen her (ok maybe a little exaggerated, but she’s definitely a popular dog).

Recently though Blues not been seen about as much due to her becoming lame in her left leg, which after alot of visits to our local vet and eventually a referral to an Orthopedic  Vet it was discovered that she’s damaged/torn her cruciate ligament, which can only be corrected with a TPLO, or tibial-plateau-leveling osteotomy,this is a surgery performed on dogs to stabilize the stifle joint after ruptures of the cranial cruciate ligament.

Now again as hopefully regular readers of this Blog, you’ll know that 3 years ago Blue had a similar injury which required a TPLO on her right leg (details of these posts can be found here)

Anyway we have 2 choices when it comes to this injury :

1. We don’t do anything and slowly watch our dogs quality of life deteriorate over the coming months and possibly run the chance of Blue’s previously operated leg giving up on her, as this will now have to take the strain of her rear body weight and as its presently held together with a plate and some bolts, there’s a high chance that this will happen and we’ll be left with a dog that has no rear mobility.

2. We put Blue in for the operation, thus repairing the injury and after much rest and recovery we have a dog who now has a quality of life and can once again walk without fear of being crippled.

Well it’s a no-brainer  really

Well it was until Tesco Pet Insurance told us that they wouldn’t pay our Vet Bills because as they put it:

“We have not helped with all or part of your claim because the 12 months immediately following the first date of treatment has been exceeded.“

“Your Policy provides cover for each condition for a maximum of 12 months. This time period has now ended so we regret we are unable to help with any further costs”

“Please refer to your Policy”

So I’ve had a read of the Policy as they suggested and came across this :

 

“17. We will not cover any treatment for a condition if: 

•  you have not told us about the condition within three months of your pet’s first treatment for the condition; or
• a claim has not been sent to us within 12 months of your pet’s first treatment for the condition  ”
  

So what they are saying in layman’s terms is that Blue was operated on her right leg 3yrs ago for a torn cruciate ligament and now because she has cruciate ligament damage on her left leg they will not pay because they class it as the same condition even though it is a completely different leg.

Which means that they will not help with the cost’s and we are now left with a possible bill of £4000  if we go ahead with the surgery, so for the past 3 years they’ve been taking payments from us and now they are using this clause to refuse to aid us.

My point is it’s a completely different leg and different injury to her earlier one ok, it’s the same treatment and its the same condition, but it’s happened completely differently, so how can it be the same condition and it’s not related to her previous injury or treatment, it a completely new injury.

Anyway I’m now in the process of trying to resolve this as Blue is scheduled for surgery on the 28th June, so I have a little over 8 day’s, otherwise we will have to cancel her surgery and just hope that Blue can manage on 3 legs and not 4, worst case scenario is she can’t and she becomes lame in both legs and she left with a quality of life which would be unbearable for her and for us.

I’ll update you all as and when I have any news, in the meantime I would strongly advise questioning your Pet Insurers about such clauses in your Pet Policies and get them to send you in laymans terms exactly what they mean.

As for Tesco’s Pet Insurance, presently my thoughts are that they are a heartless bunch who don’t care about their customers or their pets, if this changes you’ll read about it here.