Review of Petpals Direct Pet Insurance

We recently made a claim for an operation on our dog, who almost died. The claim was for £1043. The payment was not made within 7 days as stated on the insurers website, it actually took 3 weeks.

When received, the amount paid was £288 short of the claimed amount. Petpals were questioned on this deduction and we were told that that the excess was £100 and the £188 was to cover something called co-pay or MCI percentage, which as far as we can understand is just another deduction which is made just because you have claimed. So of our original claim we have only received just over 70%. Apparentley this is all in the policy document but not so obvious that you would notice it.

We pay £39 a month on our premium and the dog is 11 years old, and even with a lesser premium when the dog was at a younger age its still a lot of money, especially when they take another 30% off your claim as well. It makes the whole thing questionable, is it better to just put the premium aside in an account each month? We thought insurance companies were in the risk business, clearly not.