MGW
Covered for Life…(What a lie!)
I had a continuous covered for life policy, following expensive surgery, my cover limit was exceeded in the early part of year 10, but I continued to pay the premiums with no benefit for the remainder of the policy year to retain the cover for life. Our vet requires 24 hours notice for repeat prescriptions and I requested medication costing £300 the day before my policy renewal but did collect and pay for it until the actual day that my policy renewed. Clearly this was the point of sale and should have been covered by Petplan but they declined the claim. Veterinary medicine is a controlled substance and the law is very clear that it remains under the control of the vet until I have payed. There is no dispute as to the date I purchased the items. As experienced by many other reviewers, Petplan Customer Service is non-existent, they ignore emails and allege that the Claims Team can't be spoken to direct, only via internal communication from the agents (who indeed seldom sound UK based). They refuse to escalate complaints to a Manager, as would be possible with most companies. I have tried several times over many months to get the issue resolved without any response beyond automated emails and broken promises to return my calls, which they never do. Petplan have been using the same marketing slogan 'We pay 97% of claims' for decades, Trading Standards should review whether that remains accurate - I doubt it! Since they are no longer providing the service that I am paying for I am going to cancel my policy, even though my dog is too old to insure elsewhere. I'm not throwing good money after bad. This company is trading on past glory. Historically they were very good 20+ years ago but their service has declined badly. Don't give them your undivided loyalty, I wish I hadn't. There is definitely better cover, at lower prices elsewhere, as I discovered with my new puppy.