
Choosing the right Pet Insurance is extremely important, as the wrong choice now could have severe financial consequences later and comparing numerous policy terms and conditions can be daunting.
Once you have read this review of Buddies and compared polices using our unique search facility, you will have all the information you need to make an informed choice.
Buddies Pet Insurance Reviewed by Jonathan 26/09/2020.
Buddies a privately owned business founded in 2000 was purchased by Legal and General in 2017. With the purchase of Legal and General by Liverpool Victoria in 2020 and a change of name to Fairmead Insurance, Buddies Enterprises Ltd is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Fairmead Insurance Limited who act as underwriter. Buddies Enterprises Limited are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Buddies offer three levels of cover Standard, Premier and Premier Plus.
Click on the website link to go directly to the insurance providers website. Visit Buddies's Website and Get a Quotation direct
Click on the white bars on the right side of the policy boxes below. Expand the content to view star ratings of all policies offered by Buddies.
You must be the owner and keeper of your pet and permanently resident in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man.
Your pet must be over 8 weeks old and not have previously displayed vicious or aggressive behaviour.
Buddies Pet Insurance, offers three policies they are as follows;
Standard Policy - Covers vets fees up to £3,000 per condition up to a maximum of 12 months.
Premier Policy - Covers vets fees up to a maximum limit of £4,000. This amount is reinstated each year as long as you keep your policy up to date.
Premier Plus Policy - Covers vets fees up to a maximum limit of £7,000. This amount is reinstated each year as long as you keep your policy up to date.
The Premier and Premier Plus policies are better known as "Lifetime" policies.
A list of important exclusions - Buddies Pet Insurance does not cover;
The standard policy does not cover complementary medicine.
The premier and premier plus policies cover complementary medicine up to £500.
Complementary medicine covers physiotherapy, acupuncture, osteopathy, massage and healing,
laser therapy, chiropractic treatment and up to 10 sessions of hydrotherapy. It must be prescribed by a vet and the cost approved by Buddies prior to treatment.
The £500 limit is part of the overall vets fees limit and not in addition to it.
Prescribed food is covered under all three policies, but only food use to dissolve existing bladder stones and or crystals in urine. The £100 limit covers a maximum of 30% of the cost of the food, for a maximum of six months. Only one occurrence is covered.
Dentistry is covered by all three policies but only for treatment caused by an accident.
CT/MRI scans and Cruciate Ligament claims are covered by all policies, up to the vets fees limit.
The cost of putting your pet to sleep, burial or cremation costs are not covered under any of the buddies policies.
Buddies offer a 5% discount for insuring more than one pet (cat or dog) under the same policy.
Buddies will not cover any condition that was evident prior to inception of the policy.
Treatment in connection with pregnancy or giving birth is specifically excluded under the buddies policy.
Buddies policies cover you taking your pet abroad to one of the approved European countries under the UK "PETS" Scheme.
The standard policy covers you for up to 30 days and the premier and premier plus policies up to 180 days.
This section covers emergency vets fees, but does not cover emergency repatriation, quarantine costs, or loss of your pets passport.
Buddies Pet policies are for a period of 12 months.
Buddies state if they offer renewal, they reserve the right to change the premium, excesses and policy terms and conditions, as well as the right to withdraw third party liability cover based on your pet's behaviour.
The policy is payable by credit or debit card or monthly direct debit and renewed annually.
If you cancel your policy within 14 days, and no claims have occurred, your are entitled to a full refund of premiums.
If you cancel outside the 14 days period and no claims have occurred you are entitled to a pro-rata refund of premium.
If you cancel the policy and have made a claim, you are entitled to no refund of premium, unless the policy is cancelled due to death, theft or loss of your pet, in which case you will receive a proportionate refund of any premium.
You may cancel the policy by telephoning, emailing or writing to Buddies.
You are able to download forms for the various different types of claim direct from the buddies website.
Buddies are unable to assess a claim until they have received a completed claim form from you.
Claim forms should be completed and either emailed or posted back, together with supporting receipts.
There is no cover for accident or liability claims within the first 72 hours of the inception date of the policy.
There is no cover for any illness claims within the first 14 days of the inception of the policy.
All insurance policies (cat or dog) have a fixed excess of £90. This is the amount of any claim that you are required to pay.
The standard excess for all dog liability claims is £250.
In addition to the standard excess, you are expected to pay an additional contribution of 10% of any claims for pets under the age of six.
When your pet reaches the age of six, the amount increases to 20%.
For example if your claim is for £1,000, you will be expected to pay £90 plus 20% of the balance £182 + £90 total £272.00.
The website provides only basic policy, claim and renewal information. We could not find any frequently answered questions.
There is no live chat, but you are able to email or call their specialist team. The quotation system is easy to use and having only three policies to choose from its an easy process of comparing them.
At only 12 pages long the policy felt cramped. There is no effort to space out the text and one paragraph runs into the next.
There is no summary of cover provided. An index helps with navigation. There is no colour coding to help identify whats covered and what excluded.
The policy text had a reading score of 52.6 (out of 100) and classed as fairly difficult to read.
The text had an average reading age of 14 - 15 years. This means that a person with a reading age of 14-15 years should be able to understand the policy.
Buddies Pet Insurance is not available on any comparison sites. You can obtain quotes by visiting the companies website direct.
Buddies do not have a vet help line.
There are very few customer reviews on Buddies Pet Insurance. There were 9 reviews on trustpilot with an overall rating of 2.2/5.
There have been a few complaints over the length of time it took to get through to a customer service representative, or for Buddies to respond and that the customer portal was often down.
A customer was told that Buddies were having system issues and recruiting more staff in response to work volumes, so at least they are being proactive.
There is no information on administration charges, so assume they don't charge any.
There are currently no special promotions or discounts.
Buddies offer the choice of time limited or lifetime cover. All three policies were awarded a three star rating.
You are expected to make a 10% contribution to any claim from inception of the policy and this increases when your pet reaches the age of 6.
There is no cover for Euthanasia or cremation/burial costs.
The Buddies website confirms that "With pet insurance, your premium will increase each year at renewal as your pet gets older".
Our premium research indicates that Buddies is not the cheapest insurer.
That's Insurance have spent some time mystery shopping on buddies-pet-insurance-review's website. The policy wording, website, customer service/buying process have been carefully reviewed and each section awarded a user friendly score, which you can see below.
Policy wording - Marks are awarded for Layout, Readability ,Terminology, Communication and Appropriate information.
Website - Marks are awarded for Layout/Navigation, Access to important information e.g. policy wordings, Clear Explanation/Comparison of policies, including limitations, Frequently asked questions.
Customer Service – Marks are awarded for the Buying process, Customer Service, Clear Quotations, Access to important information/Comparison of quotes.
The scores have been calculated as an overall percentage and shown on the three gauges. You can see how Buddies compares to the industry average. The higher the percentage the better the company performs in each area.
(layout, readability, terminology)
Awaiting user friendly score
(layout, navigation, access to information)
Awaiting user friendly score
(clear quotes, buying process, customer service)
Awaiting user friendly score
We've highlighted Pro's and Cons for Buddies, click on the white bars on the right side of the boxes below. Expand the content to view pros and cons of all policies offered by Buddies.
We've listed below cover levels for policies offered by offered by To scroll through all policies, click on the arrows on the left and right of policy name section.
Listed below are some Sample Quotes offered by Buddies
Top Picks
Insurance Provider
Excess
Primary Cover
Guide Price
Type:Dog
Cover:Per Condition Time Limited
Age: 6
Breed: Medium
Group: Mongrel
90
Per Condition Time Limited 3,000
Complimentary Treatment 0
Dental 3,000
Death from Accident 250
Death from Illness 250
Theft or Straying 250
Advertising and Reward 250
Third Party Liability 1,000,000
Type:Dog
Cover:Per Condition Time Limited
Age: 6
Breed: Shih Tzu
Group: Utility
90
Per Condition Time Limited 3,000
Complimentary Treatment 0
Dental 3,000
Death from Accident 250
Death from Illness 250
Theft or Straying 250
Advertising and Reward 250
Third Party Liability 1,000,000
Type:Dog
Cover:Per Condition Time Limited
Age: 1
Breed: Shih Tzu
Group: Utility
90
Per Condition Time Limited 3,000
Complimentary Treatment 0
Dental 3,000
Death from Accident 250
Death from Illness 250
Theft or Straying 250
Advertising and Reward 250
Third Party Liability 1,000,000
Type:Dog
Cover:Lifetime Maximum Benefit
Age: 10
Breed: Spaniel (Cocker)
Group: Gundog
90
Lifetime Maximum Benefit 4,000
Complimentary Treatment 500
Dental 4,000
Death from Accident 750
Death from Illness 750
Theft or Straying 750
Advertising and Reward 1,500
Third Party Liability 2,000,000
Type:Dog
Cover:Lifetime Maximum Benefit
Age: 1
Breed: Medium
Group: Mongrel
90
Lifetime Maximum Benefit 7,000
Complimentary Treatment 500
Dental 7,000
Death from Accident 1,000
Death from Illness 1,000
Theft or Straying 1,000
Advertising and Reward 1,500
Third Party Liability 2,000,000
Type:Cat
Cover:Per Condition Time Limited
Age: 6
Breed: Moggie
Group: Moggie
90
Per Condition Time Limited 3,000
Complimentary Treatment 0
Dental 3,000
Death from Accident 250
Death from Illness 250
Theft or Straying 250
Advertising and Reward 250
Type:Cat
Cover:Per Condition Time Limited
Age: 10
Breed: Moggie
Group: Moggie
90
Per Condition Time Limited 3,000
Complimentary Treatment 0
Dental 3,000
Death from Accident 250
Death from Illness 250
Theft or Straying 250
Advertising and Reward 250
Type:Cat
Cover:Lifetime Maximum Benefit
Age: 10
Breed: Moggie
Group: Moggie
90
Lifetime Maximum Benefit 4,000
Complimentary Treatment 500
Dental 4,000
Death from Accident 750
Death from Illness 750
Theft or Straying 750
Advertising and Reward 1,500
Type:Cat
Cover:Lifetime Maximum Benefit
Age: 6
Breed: Moggie
Group: Moggie
90
Lifetime Maximum Benefit 7,000
Complimentary Treatment 500
Dental 7,000
Death from Accident 1,000
Death from Illness 1,000
Theft or Straying 1,000
Advertising and Reward 1,500
Type:Cat
Cover:Lifetime Maximum Benefit
Age: 1
Breed: Moggie
Group: Moggie
90
Lifetime Maximum Benefit 4,000
Complimentary Treatment 500
Dental 4,000
Death from Accident 750
Death from Illness 750
Theft or Straying 750
Advertising and Reward 1,500