Lifetime Pet Insurance Cover Explained

Lifetime Pet Insurance Cover Explained

Lifetime pet insurance cover is a topic that needs a little explanation. At first it seems fairly self explanatory, but the truth is a little more complicated.

In terms of pet insurance "lifetime cover" doesn't mean that your pet will be covered for all conditions for life. In fact some providers who offer policies under this name may not actually insure older pets, so its worth going to the effort to compare pet insurance providers before you make a decision here.

According to the FSA rules, "lifetime cover" for pet insurance can refer to any policy that covers a medical condition for longer than twelve months. A lifetime policy is one that will cover your pet for a condition for more than the first twelve months. So far so simple you might say.

However, pet insurance providers deal with coverage for ongoing conditions such as diabetes or arthritis in different ways.

One type of cover on offer is where insurance is limited annually by each condition. Basically the provider offers you a set limit for a specific condition that you can claim for each year - once you've hit the limit, you pay. However, the cover will renew at the end of each year and the conditions do not need to be established beforehand. Instead, insurers offer you a certain amount of money you can claim on insurance for each condition. So for example, if an insurer offered you a per condition limit of 3000 pounds, if your dog developed diabetes, asthma and a skin infection, you could claim 3000 poundsper year for each condition separately.

Then there's the catch-all annual limit option. This sets an overall annual limit that you can claim from, which can be useful if your pet develops a particularly expensive condition but often has drawbacks due to its inflexibility. You get one lump figure, say 7000 pounds, and all of your claims for pet healthcare are subtracted from this. Using the last example, this would mean around2333 pounds for asthma, 2333 pounds for diabetes and 2333 pounds for the skin infection. Obviously if one of these costs more or one costs less the figures will be less clear cut, but hopefully the idea is clear enough.

Finally there's the 'per condition' limited lifetime cover. This sets a monetary limit for the lifetime of the policy (not your pet!) that can be used separately for each condition. Effectively you get a much bigger pool of money to draw from for each condition and protection against the number of conditions that your pet might develop.So, if that amount was 20,000 pounds per condition and had the above three conditions, you could claim up to 20,000 pounds for each condition.

Each type of policy is suited to different circumstances depending on your pet and your circumstances. However, given how useful 'lifetime' cover is, its a good idea to make sure you compare pet insurance options for the best fit for you.