We all understand, or at least should, insurance companies are in business to make money. In their case that means paying out less in claims than taking in premiums.
OK, so insurance is there to cover the possible, not probable, disaster. We understand. And there’s a compact, implied at least, between us insured and those insurers. We play fair with each other, and everything works out fine.
But it turns out at least one insurer doesn’t believe in the play fair bit. We’ve given them a bunch of business in the past, but won’t anymore, because they only understand one side of what’s fair.
We’ve been paying Saga Pet Insurance up to £500 each year for the last five, without a claim in sight.
Recently, our pet Bouvier de Flandres developed some skin problems the vet recommended should be investigated.
We agreed of course. He’s been part of our family for more than 10 years, and we’re insured.
Except it turns out we weren’t, to the extent we thought, at least.
The vets bill came to £661.00.
We discovered to our horror the insurance only covered 75% of any claim. That was bad enough. Having paid out £500 in premiums we were looking at a cost to us of £165.
If only we’d been that lucky.
By the time Saga Pet Insurance had sliced, and diced, the treatment into pieces, and disallowed any item with an individual cost less than £75.00 we knew we’d been screwed.
Out of the total bill of £661.00 we find ourselves paying out £393.50. Saga Pet Insurance had decided to pay £266.00 out of our £500.00 premium.
We won’t argue. We’re sure this is all covered in the terms and conditions, in the small print.
But we won’t be spending any more money on premiums with Saga Pet Insurance. And we’ll look closely before renewing any of our other Saga Insurance policies.
There’s a lesson here for all sales people. You can fool people some of the time, but you won’t get away with doing it every time.
