Friday 5 June 2009

My strongly worded letter of complaint...

Thanks for your kind words regarding the loss of my cat Domino - I thought I would share my complaint letter that I am about to send to my Pet insurance company regarding there involvement in Dominos demise;


To whom it may concern;
I am writing to complain about the level of service I have received regarding my Pet insurance.
Due to your farcical underwriting procedures we have been forced to euthanize out cat Domino at the young age of just 2 years old. I find it unfathomable that you were unable to provide a service to enable him to carry on his life due to an illness that you classed as a “pre-existing medical condition” – his condition WAS NOT pre-existing but apparently because it was connected to the same region in his body it is so classed.
Domino was seen by the vet in August 2008 for a bacterial infection in his bladder, at the time the vets checked for crystals in his system, which if they had found some would then be classed as pre-existing but they didn’t, they treated and retested and he was in the clear.
Our policy began in December of 2008 so we did not disclose the information as it was only bacterial. When we admitted him into emergency care on Tuesday 2nd June they diagnosed him with a blockage in his penis and they would do their best to treat medically and try to avoid surgery but they were concerned about whether you would cover the claim. On Wednesday morning we had a call from our vet to say that there was nothing they could do medically so would have to go for surgery – as soon as 9am came around I called your claims line to ensure you would cover the claim, only to be told no?
I have 2 statements that you use to help you advertise your policies that I would like you to clarify.
1 . “Cats and dogs make wonderfully loving pets (although feline friends are more likely to need some personal space). It’s only fair that you therefore make sure you do everything you can to keep them in good health.” – Yes they are indeed wonderfully loving pets – Do you actually care though? If you did care about the fact that you hold the lives of living animals in your hands, why would you not endeavour to listen to the full background of the medical history and ensure that you can let a living creature live as long as possible?
2. “Any claim that is in any way connected with a pre-existing condition” So, the term “in any way” is a very loose connection – this implies that basically you will try to avoid paying out a claim in any eventuality - our claim was not connected but with your wording “in any way”, what way is a bacterial infection connected to Cystitis please?
If you refer to number 1 query please – you are quiet simply playing God, you have the power to decide whether an animal lives or dies, in the current economic climate, I would have thought that you would show leniency towards perfectly responsible pet owners who, as we have, made sure we are able to afford to keep our pets covered and ensure that we give them the best possible lives, but this does literally mean nothing when you have such restrictive underwriting procedures.
I’m not an imbecile, I understand that you are a business and that you have to make money, I actually used to work for yourselves selling your Tesco (and other associated company products) you trained you to believe that you were a fair and reasonable company, but when I spoke to your claims handler there was no grey area, just a definite no and as I have stated above has now resulted in our cat to be euthanized, so the situation is now, I am without a pet and without £677 - which was the cost of keep Domino alive until we could find out if yourselves would cover to pay for the life saving surgery.
I quite frankly feel robbed – normally you have a pet or money in your pocket but I have no pet and I have no money either, how can a normal working household afford to pay in excess of £2000 to keep a pet alive and more to the point why should they have to consider such money when they pay for insurance?
I would appreciate a response to my queries and a justification of how you conduct your claims procedures, as I mentioned above I did used to work for yourselves and I am perfectly aware of my rights as an insurance consumer – should I not receive a response to my complaint I will be referring this correspondence to the FOS.


Lets see what happens!!
Claire
xXx

2 comments:

  1. Blimey, what bastards!!! Luckily we haven't had those issues with our pet insurance but I do really feel for you hun. I hope that they respond to you and refund you your money. Are you going to get another pet?

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  2. We won't be getting another cat, we still have his brother Tiger to get settled into life being an only cat!
    Fingers crossed a lady cat owner will open the letter and weep and demand they return our money either for the waste of space of the policy or even better my 677!! Not holding my breath for any kind of refund!

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