Marks and Spencer insurance-please read

[JBalways2000]

Originally Posted by Fran

I have only ever been with petplan (with exception of horse insurance) and other than the excesses on the policies, I have never had to pay a penny to my vet. On the form you fill in, it gives you the option of who you want the claim money paying to i.e yourself or the vet. I have always chosen the vet option and my vets are more than happy with this, no mater how long it has taken to settle

sounds like you have a very decent vets-shame your not closer! lol i think the easiest and less worrying thing for me to do is get the other three boys on petplan so atleast i wont have to worry about paying more then the excess with them if i ever have to claim. i just wish the vets had mentioned this at some point to me as i would have put them all on petplan to begin with if id have known they had a preference which would effect me. there was an option on the form i filled in and i ticked for it to be paid to the vets which is why i wondered why all the fuss was made. even reading through the policy booklet it states that aslong as they the insurance company agree with your decision they can pay to whoever you like. this has all been very confusing i have to admit.

[random]

My vets are quite lenient with payments and have let me pay in installments on occasions before I had insurance, *touches wood* but i've never had to claim off the insurance but could be worth asking next time I guess what the procedure is.

[JBalways2000]

Originally Posted by yola

And as for not having the money to pay? Surely if you have pets you need to allow for all eventualities and that includes hefty vet fees. I've been in a position where I've had to put over £1500 on a credit card for my old FIV boy because he couldn't be insured. Yes, it hurt financially, but I made sure I had kept the capacity on the card for just that kind of eventuality.

Insurance is a safety net rather than a panacea for all potential situations and conditions as there are certain instances where it won't or can't provide cover.

wow, that was so totally uncalled for. i have kept this whole thread pleasant and thanked everyone for their input but i will NOT be thanking you for yours. how dare you imply that i am an irresponsible pet owner when i have explained and made it obvious in this thread that i had thought all along that i wouldnt have to worry about "hefty vet bills" because i had insurance to cover them. i have only ever been a responsible pet owner, otherwise i wouldnt have my cats insured!! i am not one of these people who has a £1500 credit card that i can whip out, i am not one of these people who can afford thousands of pounds when put on the spot. i would always get the money somehow because i love my animals more then anything else in the world and would sell everything i owned to make sure they got any treatment they needed, my point was that i thought i wouldnt have to worry like that with having insurance. this is my first ever insurance claim and from everything i had read in the policy booklet and heard about from others i would only ever have to pay the excess.. another point i was trying to make is how i didnt think it was fair for my vets to be perfectly fine with accepting just the excess from one insurance company but not any others. i am sure marks and spencers wouldnt be happy in the slightest knowing this fact, as neither am i.

i do thank everyone else again for telling me your experiences and not judging me for my confusion

[JBalways2000]

Originally Posted by random

My vets are quite lenient with payments and have let me pay in installments on occasions before I had insurance, *touches wood* but i've never had to claim off the insurance but could be worth asking next time I guess what the procedure is.

i would hope my vets would be the same and allow me to pay in installments, especially as they know i have been going there for years and paid every single penny i owed them. i would certainly recommend finding out your vets way of doing things before you are put in a spot like me so you are prepared-learn from my mistakes

[bobbie3917]

i can see why a vet would want payment up front when there is no insurance but when there is, there should be no need to, yes i know there there are people out there that will try anything on but as long as you take your paper work with you then it should be fine as far as i can see (it should say on there what they will not pay for so the vet woul know what will be covered)

my vets are very good, we had an out of hour call a few years ago and my vets are part of a practice and we ended up not at our vets and i only had half the money on me, they said that was fine and to take it to my vets with in the next week, they had no way of knowing if i was lying, i have also only had a $50 (sorry no pound sign) note and they didnt have enough change for me so said to pay next time and she know that would be over 2 months away

[pinklizzy]

Oh how I hate insurance claims!!! At the moment I'm in charge of submitting the insurance claims at my practice. We can make direct claims from PetPlan (as a petplan practice) and in the majority of cases, ask for payment upfront before claiming from other insurance companies-purely due to the £1,000's owed to the practice in bad debts, we had instances of clients paying us the excess then keeping hold of the insurance cheque. Not that I'm suggesting that any Catsey members would do this!
I obviously can't speak for any other vet practice,just wanted to explain it from the side of the veterinary practice. The best thing to do is to request a meeting with the practice manager/partner to discuss paying by installments.
Obviously,no animal should be refused treatment in an emergency.

[Amber]

Pinklizzy took the words right out of my mouth we also work on the same policy as her practice with regards to asking for payment upfront, and claiming the money back for the client. It does depend on the individual practice, and no vet has the right to refuse treatment in an emergency. If you are struggling, I would suggest a meeting with the practice manager or whoever is in charge of finances to discuss possible options for payment plans or claiming direct.

I personally hate it on insurance adds where they pretty much state "don't worry about vets bills as your vet will claim direct" leading clients into a false sense of security, when unfortunately in many cases that just isn't so.

[charliebubs]

I agree that it's down the the discretion of the vets practice. I'm with M&S for a couple of my cats, AXA (who underwrite M&S) for another and PetPlan for another.

I always have to pay my vets up front and then claim back from the insurance company, as that is how my vets deal with claims.

Having said that, they did make an exception for me once when one of my cats had a few successive vets stays and it was breaking my bank balance!! They claimed direct from M&S and sorted it themselves.

Perhaps you could change vets rather than insurance companies??

Be careful with changing insurance companies as any pre-existing medical conditions will not be covered by the new insurer/policy.