Perfect Pet Insurance Review

Your pet must be a minimum of 4 weeks old and be properly wormed and vaccinated against (for dogs) distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, kennel cough and parvovirus (for cats) cat flu and feline leukemia.

You must be over the age of 18 and be the owner and keeper of the pet, which must live with you in the United Kingdom.

You must take care of your pet and provide proper care and attention at all time, taking reasonable steps to prevent accident or injury.

If your dog is on a designated road, it must be on a collar and lead and under control.

Perfect Pet offer seven different pet insurance policies.

Accident only - up to £1,000 vet fees cover per condition that only covers accidents or injury

Essential and Essential Extra - covers vet fees up of £1,000 and £2,500 respectively per condition, with a maximum time limit of 12 months.

Vital and Vital Extra - covers vet fees of £1,000 and £4,000. This is a maximum benefit per condition with no time limit.

Elite and Elite Extra - covers vet fees of £1,000 and £4,000. This is a limit per condition, with the limit being reset when the policy renews after 12 months.

This a list of policy exclusions. Perfect Pet Insurance do not cover;

1. Elective, Routine, Preventative or cosmetic treatments, or procedures and any claims that occur as a result of these procedures.
2. The cost of vaccinations.
3. Spaying, Castration or the removal of retained testes.
4. Grooming, bathing, nail clipping, de-matting of your pet.
5. Flea, Tick, Worm treatments or the treatment of skin mites.
6. Any illness caused by worms, or fleas, or that your pet should be vaccinated against.
7. Treatment for pregnancy, giving birth and anything connected to the breeding cycle of your pet, including kittening and whelping.
8. Any claim relating to behavioural problems including the costs of any products.
9. Claims as a result of your pet being overweight or underweight.
10. Any claim for prosthesis except for hip and elbow replacement and eye lens implants.
11. Any treatment using Stem cell or gene therapy, or any costs associated with organ transplantation or blood donation.
12. Referral Consultations costing more than £200.
13. Unlicensed medication, unless your vet can confirm it has been clinically proven to treat the condition.
14. Any claim for umbilical hernias, dew claws and tail docking.
15. House and Out of hours calls, including hospitalisation, unless your vet considers this to be life saving.
16. The cost of housing, including cages or bedding (including warm blankets).
17. Any claim where your pet suffers from a notifiable disease as named in the Animal Health Act 1981, any sexually transmitted diseases, Rabies or Leishmaniasis.
18. Death through Illness if your dog is over 8 years of age and your cat is over 10 years of age.
19. Medication that is not prescribed by a Vet.
20. Any claim where your pet is trained for use as gun dogs, in connection with shooting, for guarding, security, business, fighting, showing, racing, coursing, beating, or resides in a premises that sells alcohol or is taken to a place of work.
21. Any pet registered under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and the following breeds Akita, American Bandogge, American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Pit Bulls, Anatolian Shepherd Dog (Karabash), Boerboel, Bully Kutta, Caucasian Ovcharka, Cane Corso, Chow Chow, Dogo Argentinos, Fila Brasileiro, Gull dong, Japanese Tosa, Canary Dogs or Perro de Presa Canario, Romanian Raven Shepherd Dog, Shar Pei, Wolves or wolf hybrids or any cross of these breeds.

Apart from the accident only policy, all cover complementary treatments such as physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic manipulation, acupuncture, laser therapy, homoeopathy and herbal medicines.

Perfect pet only cover dental, mouth or gum treatments as a result of injury.

None of the policies cover prescription food of any kind.

MRI/CT Scans and Cruciate ligament claims are covered up to the vet fees limits.

None of the Perfect pet policies cover the cost of putting your pet to sleep or associated burial or cremation costs.

Perfect Pet offer a 10% discount for insuring multiple pets under the same policy including cats and dogs.

Note, the discount only applies for pets residing at the same address and where a policy is taken out online.

Perfect Pets do not cover any of your pets pre-existing medical conditions, which they describe as :

"Any diagnosed or un-diagnosed Condition which has occurred or existed, or has shown signs or symptoms of existing in any form before the Policy Start Date. This also includes any diagnosis or any clinical signs caused by or resulting from an Accidental
Injury or Illness your pet had on an Associated Condition before the Policy Start Date."

Perfect Pets do not cover any treatments or costs associated with breeding, pregnancy, giving birth, kittening or whelping.

With the exception of Accident Only, all Perfect Pet Insurance policies will cover you taking your pet abroad for a maximum of 30 days per trip and up to 3 holidays per period of insurance. This is provided you qualify under the Governments Pet Scheme.

However unlike many other policies, they only extend vet fees cover to between £250, and £1,000 depending on the policy you select and don't cover additional quarantine costs, emergency repatriation, repeat worming or loss of your pets passport

Perfect Pet Insurance do not cover any accidental injury that occurs within the first 5 days of the start of the policy, or illness, cruciate ligament, or any other claim within the first 14 days of the start of the policy.

The standard excess is £90 for all claims (except dog liability claims which is £250).

When your dog reaches the age of 8 and your cat reaches the age of 10, you will be required to contribute an additional 15% towards the cost of any claim, in addition to the standard excess.

For example, if you claim was for £1,000, you would be required to pay £90 excess plus £136.50 (15%) total £226.50.

Aside from access to the policy wording, the website, provides very little information on the specific policies. There are no frequently asked questions, or any helpful explanation of what is or isn't covered. Live Chat is not available on the website, so if you have a query, you would need to either phone or email them.

The quotation system is easy to use, the quotes are presented in an easy to read table. You have to click more information to see a breakdown of the basic levels of covers.

There are four policy wordings each dealing with a different policy type (accident only, time limited etc) and either 26 or 27 pages long.

There is no summary of cover available, but each has a helpful index and definition of words section. Coloured titles assist and it is fairly easy to see what is and isn't covered under each section. 

In tests the text scored 56.6 out of 100 and was classed as fairly difficult to read, with a reading age of between 14 - 15 required to be able to understand the wording.

Perfect Pet can be found on MoneySuperMarket and ComparetheMarket comparison websites. During comparisons, we found that the cover and sums insured were similiar to that found by going direct, however the comparison websites do not have specific names for the products, so make sure if you are comparing with Perfect Pets direct that it's on a like for like basis.

Perfect Pet do not have a pet health helpline.

Perfect Pet have received 1805 customer reviews on trustpilot with a rating of 4 out of 5. This suggests that most customers are happy with the service they provide. After further investigation, we found that the majority of lower or negative reviews, related to missed payments/not being able to get hold of the company on the phone and increase of premium at renewal.

We believe the missed payments were an administration error and have now been resolved.

There are no administration charges.

There are currently no special discounts or promotions.

The website could provide customers with more specific information about Perfect Pets policies and assist customers by answering some of the more common questions, which would help customers with their understanding and reduce the need for them to phone up.

Claims must be notified within 90 days, forms can be downloaded online, but you have to post the completed form with relevant documents before it can be dealt with.

In comparison tests, Perfect Pet's policies were level with the market average for the premiums charged. Their policies tend to be no frills and are missing additional benefits like prescription food, euthanasia/help with burial costs and treatment for behavioural issued and offer reduced benefits, for example accidental only cover in respect of dental, and cover whilst abroad. Something to think about, if these areas are important to you.

Having said all that, most customers appear to be happy with the service they have received.

It's important you read this review carefully as it covers the majority of areas that you need to understand when choosing pet insurance. 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.