A word from our sponsors

Well, ok, they're not our sponsors but a quick comment about Pet Plan insurance.

When we got Indy from the SSPCA he came with 6 weeks insurance from Pet Plan which could be extended into a full policy. At the time we didn't pay much attention to that fact. Like a lot of people we had a vague theory that we would simply save enough to pay a few hundred quid for any vet bills. Like a lot of people, we had the impression that pet insurance was basically a huge scam that rarely paid out and even when it did so, the excess was so high that it was meaningless.

How wrong we were and how close we were to costing Indy in his life. About 4 weeks into having him he was struck down by a life-threatening illness - pyothorax. He ended being rushed into the "Dick Vet" (Royal "Dick" Vetinarary School). It was touch and go but he survived after many days in an oygen tent and a lot of intense follow-up treatment. Even now he still gets his twice-daily puffer and is likely to do so for life. Our poor, if inordinantly fluffy, cat is a "respiratory cripple."

Because we had cover and it could be extended, the insurance paid all of the fees and continues to pay for his follow-up treatment and subsequent complications. Because we have a decent policy with life time condition and annual budget, we are confident that we can deal with whatever might happen to him. He's been through at least three lives that we know of already.

Thing is, Pet Plan didn't just do the minimum. A few months after we extended his policy into a full yearly one, we received, unasked for, a refund cheque for one of the excesses. The letter said that although it was technically correct to ask for an excess for each "year," they felt the events were so close together that it wouldn't be fair to charge us the excess twice. So they took the initiative to refund one of them.

We pay about a tenner a month for Indy's policy and we don't begrudge a penny. So far his treatment has cost in the region of £5,000 and the insurers have paid out for it. Without insurance we could not have afforded the treatment. Indy can't speak but we can. Insurance companies get a bad press but in this case, this company has come up trumps and we both believe that if a company does something to be praised, it should be praised.