M&S Insurance AGAIN......Out of Hours Treatment Condition Introduced.

[CraftySam]

I've just got my renewal notice for Morgan's M&S insurance.  Unsurprisingly, because of everything I've read on here, there was a huge hike in the premium. 

The premium has increased by £40 and gone from having a zero excess previously to a £70 excess.    The other three are on Direct Line and their last renewal premium went up by pence, I'll wait and see what happens this year.

With the M&S renewal was a fair bit of information including a booklet on changes to the policy. I'm having a read through and I'm staggered to read:

Veterinary Fees - Out of Hours Treatment - current policy no conditions - new policy "Before you use an out of hours service offered by a vet you must call Marks and Spencer Pet Insurance out of hours number for advice".

I am amazed and horrified by that.    When Andrew came bursting through the door carrying Sapphi at 6am who had been knocked down, hit on the head and blood everywhere the absolute last thing I would have wanted to/thought about was ringing the insurance company.  We flew out to the emergency vets ringing them from the car to let them know we were on our way.

OK some people may use out of hours unnecessarily for things that would wait, just like people use A&E instead of seeing their GP but I don't think it should be down to an insurance advisor to say whether your animal needs to be seen or not having spoken to you on the phone and secondly should it be a real emergency where time is of the essence stopping to dig out your insurance documents then ringing them up could cause a delay in vital treatment.  What happens if you forget to do ring them because of the situation, which I'm sure many of use could see ourselves doing?

So for those of you with M&S policies who will be getting their renewal notices make sure you read all the changes that they have made and think about whether you're prepared to ring an insurance advisor to see if your pet can go for emergency treatment.

You won't be surprised to hear that I haven't renewed the policy and have moved him to Halifax.

[Nicola]

I got the same thing last week as Tilly's M&S policy expires next week. Her policy has gone from £11.70 per month to £21.40 and from zero excess to £70. I haven't renewed hers either.

[Cob-Web]

Don't panic, this clause has been changed in their online policy documentation, because so many people complained 

It now requires you to call their number only if you are going to use a vet other than your normal vet out of hours  Even if you do, and the vet subsequently states that it could have waited, they will pay for treatment, just not the out of hours fees 

If anyone is worried, give them a ring but make sure you get the terms you agree to in writing 


M & S have changed their underwriters; and a lot of the T & C's have changed - dental treatment is now only covered if you have annual dental check ups (which are not covered)

[CraftySam]

Well I am glad to hear that, because I thought it was out of order........in case you hadn't guessed! 

However if this is the case they should have included an amendment sheet in with their documentation.  When renewing a policy I'd believe the T&C's I'm sent are the ones I'm agreeing to and bound to.

I'd still have a problem with it, my out of hours service isn't at my own vets. In fact an exceedingly large number of vets in Leeds don't do their own out of hours cover and a large animal hospital does the emergency cover.

I think that it is reasonable of them though not to pay the out of hours fee if it wasn't really an emergency, thats fair enough. I'm sure there might be times though when people are really worried about something and truly believe its an emergency and it turns out to be nothing to worry about too much. I hope the vet is allowed to use their common sense and say whether it was something that looked worse than it was or whether it was a blatant abuse of the out of hours service.

[AnnieG]

Just had mine through.  It's gone up quite a lot - over £26 per month each which - with two dogs - is painful.  And the worst thing is that Millie is now too old to change insurers. Not happy.