PDSA Pet Insurance Review

You must be the owner of the pet and it must live with you at an address in the UK.
Your pet must be older than 8 weeks, in good health, free from injury, illness or physical disability and have not shown any aggressive tendancies.
You must take your pet for regular check ups and keep your pet vaccinated from

DOGS; against distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis and parvovirus.
CATS; against feline infectious enteritis, feline influenza, feline herpes virus, feline calicivirus and feline leukaemia (homeopathic vaccines are not acceptable).
You must provide proper care and attention and if you own a dog and take it to a public place, it must wear a collar with your name and address engraved on it.

The PDSA offer two policies types with varying degrees of vet cover.

The Time Limited policy covers conditions up to either £2,000 or £5,000 for a maximum of 12 months.

The Lifetime policy provides an overall vet fees benefit limit of either £1,000, £2,000, £3,000, £4,000, £5,000 and a 4 star rated £8,000. Provided the policy is renewed this benefit is reinstated each policy year.

This is a list of the important exclusions. PDSA do not cover;

1. Preventative, or elective treatments, routine examinations or treatments, any cost as a result of failure to carry out these procedures.
2. Killing and controlling fleas, or worming.
3. Spaying, or Castration.
4. Treatment for retained testicle(s) unless your pet was under 12 weeks of age at the start of the policy.
5. Treatment in connection with pregnancy or parturition, whelping or kittening.
6. The routine removal of dewclaws.
7. The cost of bathing, grooming, nail clipping or de-matting.
8. Sex hormonal problems unless directly resulting from a valid claim.
9. Routine blood tests/pre-anaesthetic blood tests if your pet is under the age of 8 years.
10. The cost of pheromone products.
11. The cost of home calls, or out of hours surgery visits and non essential hospitalisation unless the vet considers it would seriously endanger your pets health.
12. Any claim for any form of housing, cage, or bedding including the cost of more than 1 buster collar or tee shirt.
13. Nutritional supplements and vitamins unless prescribed by a vet to take the place of medication.
14. Any medication or treatment not recommended by a vet.
15. Any dog that is an, American Pit Bull Terrier, Dogo Argentino, Fila Braziliero, Japanese Tosa, Perro de Presa Canario, Pit Bull, Pit Bull Terrier, wolf or wolf hybrid, or a dog crossed with these, or any animal registered under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991.
16. Your pet being used for commercial breeding purposes, guarding, track racing, coursing, or used in connection with any business, trade, profession, or occupation
17. The cost of treatment for behavioural illness, behavioural modification treatment or any forms of training.
18. Any claim as a result of a ‘notifiable’ disease (as defined by DEFRA) e.g. rabies.
19. Any treatment or costs connected to organ transplants and fitting full or partial artificial limbs (prosthesis) with the exception of costs relating to replacement hip, elbow and or knee joints.
20. Any claim for the death of your pet due to illness for dogs aged 9 and over or cats aged 11 and over.
21. The cost of any treatment, or complications arising from treatment, that you choose to have carried out that is not directly related to an injury or illness, including cosmetic dentistry or surgery.
22. The cost of routine or investigative tests or diagnostic procedures, unless these are being undertaken specifically to diagnose an injury or illness.

Every PDSA policy covers complementary medicine that has been recommended by a vet. Treatments include Acupuncture, hydrotherapy, osteopathy, physiotherapy and chiropractic therapy and up to five (for Time Limited policies) or ten sessions (for Lifetime policies) of hydrotherapy.

All treatments must be carried out by a suitably qualified person.

The policy does not cover unapproved alternative medicines including pulsed magnetic field therapy, matrix energy field therapy, the Bowen technique, Reiki massage, and faith healing.

PDSA policies will cover the cost of dentistry but only if it is required as a result of an accident.

Policies do not cover prescription foods or diets, with the exception of food prescribed and purchased from a vet or online veterinary pharmacy used to dissolve bladder stones and crystals in your pets urine.

Cover is provided up to a maximum of £100 and a deduction will be made of 75p a tin or £1.50 per kilo for dry food as normal feeding costs for your pet. The maximum time limit for this cover is 60 days.

Cruciate Ligament claims are covered up to the vet fee limit. In respect of MRI and CT scans there are inner limits according to the level of cover you choose. They vary from £600 - £900 in respect of CT Scans and £1,000 - £1,500 in respect of MRI scans. The industry average is £2,000.

All PDSA policies include Euthanasia cover up to £100, as long as it has been recommended by a vet.

You are able to insure more than one pet under the same policy.

The PDSA do not cover your pet's pre-existing medical conditions.

These are defined as "Any illness or injury or complication directly resulting from an injury or illness, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed that has been identified or investigated by a vet or is otherwise known to you prior to the start of the insurance".

PDSA policies do not cover any costs associated with Pregnancy or giving birth.

The Government PETS scheme allows you to take your pet abroad to certain countries without the need for lengthy quarantine. The PDSA extend vet fees cover whilst you are abroad with your pet for a maximum of 30 days (90 days Lifetime £8,000 policy).

In addition, they also provide cover for Holiday Cancellation, Emergency Repatriation, Quarantine Expenses and loss of your pets passport.

Under a new PDSA pet insurance policy there is no cover for accidents or injury for the first 3 days and no cover for illness for the first 14 days.

The minimum excess that applies to all policies is £100. However you do have the option to increase this to £200 which reduces the premium by about 15%.

When your pet turns 6, the policy includes a compulsory variable excess of 20% on top of the fixed excess that you already pay.

If your pet is under the age of 6, you have the option to include this variable excess from the start of the policy and reduce the overall premium by approximately 20%.

The website is nicely laid out, but you have to remember that the website doesn't just deal with insurance and this makes a bit harder to navigate around. For example, we couldn't find where to download a claim form.

The site does explain the difference between the levels of cover and provides a nice info graphic type breakdown of the different levels of cover available and the important inner limits. Access to the policy wording is provided if you need more information.

The quotation system is also easy to use. The quote explains the difference in cover and the options available. At this point live chat is available for any questions about the policy. You can easily scroll between the different levels of cover and excess options and see how that effects the premium, before proceeding to check out.

Unfortunately the site is let down by the lack of frequently asked (insurance questions), so if you have a query, you can either phone up or wait until you are doing a quote and use the live chat facility.

The policy wording at 13 pages is a little cramped, especially when you take into account the fact that it includes two summary of cover pages, an index and a definitions page. All black and white text with no colour coding didn't help.

In tests the policy wording scored 52.5 and was classed as fairly difficult to read, with a reading age of 14 - 15 required to be able to understand the content.

The PDSA pet policy can only be found on the following comparison sites, GoCompare, Confused and CompareTheMarket.

Our tests showed that the cover and premiums were the same as quotes obtained directly, but you don't have the flexibility to amend the excess or the co-insurance amount on the comparison websites.

The PDSA operate a 24/7 veterinary helpline exclusive to existing and new policyholders.

There are very few pet insurance reviews. The PDSA have 228 reviews on Trust Pilot with a low rating of 2.1 out of 5, but the majority of these reviews relate to the PDSA as an organisation and in reality Pet Insurance is administered by the Insurance Factory.

Any negative reviews we could find related to increases in premium at renewal time.

There are no administration or cancellation charges.

There are currently no special discounts or promotions.

In our comparison tests in the main, PDSA pet policies tend to get more competitive the older the pet, as you can see from the example quotes below. You always have the option with PDSA to reduce the premium by electing a higher standard excess and/ or paying the 20% co insurance payment from the start of the policy, rather than waiting until your pet is 6 years old, when it becomes compulsory.

The website claims that 97% of claims are settled, and the PDSA will settle claims as long as they are submitted within 180 days of treatment. They state that you do not need to contact them before treatment begins, with the exception of complementary medicine. Like most companies they will not confirm a claim until they have received all the paperwork.

However the policy advises that every claim will be reviewed by an internal pet claims assessor and compared to charges for the same or similar treatment within the same area to ensure that the treatment and veterinary fees are reasonable, necessary, essential, and not excessive.

If you are worried about your pets teeth, the PDSA policy only covers dental treatment in the event of an accident.

Time limited policies 12 month cover starts when a condition is first noticed by you or your vet, and not from the date treatment starts. If you wait to see if the condition clears up on it's own before starting treatment, be aware the 12 month clock has already started ticking.

Every new PDSA pet insurance policy helps the PDSA charity.

Once you have digested our review you can compare levels of cover below, together with example quotations or compare all pet policies.

If you would like information on pet insurance for a specific breed, visit our pet insurance guide section.