This is Lulu’s story about how she wasn’t covered on her new pet insurance…
Lulu was our beautiful cat. She’s was just under 12 years old when we sadly lost her to cancer (although this story isn’t connected with that). We often referred to her as Danny’s older “sister”. She was adventurous and had a character all of her own.
However, we too have been caught foul of the 14-day “no claim” clause, and I wanted to share her story with you.
On the evening of 5th November 2019, Lulu was attacked by another cat. Because of the time of year, we let her out early afternoon before the fireworks started to give her time to do her business. It was around 4pm that we heard the sound of wailing that cats make when they are in a fight. I quickly went to the backdoor and called her in.
It was about an hour and a half later when I noticed she didn’t seem quite herself. She seemed to have problems putting weight onto her right hand front leg. Trying to look at it, or get anywhere near it, caused her great angst. As the evening wore on, she became more and more lethargic, and we were increasingly worried.
Because of the time of evening, and the fact that her then vets (Pets at Home) did not have their own out-of-hours vet service, we called the emergency vets in Caterham. They suggested that it might be best to bring her in for a once over. We did this, and the vet could find no reason why she was apparently in pain, but was assured enough that it wasn’t a broken bone as she still had good movement in her limbs. The vet suggested she may have twisted her leg during the fight.
We brought her home and waited to see how she got on. For the next 4 days, she didn’t seem to be quite right. On the morning of the 5th day, we awoke to see that she had an abscess that had burst during the night. An emergency dash to Vets at Home confirmed that she had been harbouring the injury for a few days (a deep bite puncture wound), and that we would not have spotted it. Emergency antibiotics and Metacam were prescribed.
Unfortunately, we had changed insurers (from Petplan to M&S Pet Insurance) just 7 days before the fight occurred. As such, we were told that even though this was something beyond our control (the fight), we were not eligible to claim for the cost of the emergency vet, and then subsequently, the cost of treatment to fix the injury sustained. In total, we spent over £500 in fees to get her back on her feet.
Lulu’s story is another example of where changing insurers, and without having any control of the situation that arose during the 14-day “no claim” period, meant that we were not eligible to claim on the pet insurance.
