I've posted about our rescue dog before: to cut a long story short, the Dogs' Trust thought she was a bit timid, and once we'd taken her on it emerged that she was in fact very damaged indeed. Probably a failed gun dog, and utterly crippled by fear of anything vaguely gunshot-like.
We've had a long 18 month journey, and with the help of a vet behaviourist we are slowly making progress. She is now emerging outside of the house to have a look around the back garden; six months ago I didn't think she'd ever even get that far.
She's on a complex cocktail of drugs, and at the moment her daily meds bill is about £8. A year ago I had a discussion with our insurer (who I will leave nameless for the time being). Our cover is for £7000pa, with that limit resetting at every annual renewal, but there were also explicit limits of £1000 for alternative therapy and of six months for behavioural therapy.
I had to ring them - they simply weren't replying to emails. I spoke with a very helpful person who completely assured me that any drug that came by prescription from my vet was a medical issue, and therefore came out of the recurring £7000pa limit. I explicitly checked that these ongoing drugs would not fall foul of either the £1000 or the six month limitations.
I now wish I had recorded that conversation. I've just put in a claim for a little short of £4000 for the last twelve months, and they have paid out £148. Their position is that, as they class this as a behavioural problem, the six months started on the day we first discussed her issue with our vet. In effect, when I made that phone call and was assured that they would cover any drug with a prescription, I was already only a couple of weeks from the cover being lifted.
Needless to say I am not too chuffed about this! We might not have gone down the route we have, if we'd known that our insurance was not going to pay out; our attitude has very much been 'forget the cost, it's all going on the insurance anyway'.
I have written back to them to ask that they dig up the recording of my phone call (they do say that they record everything) and review it, and then re-assess my claim. I'd appreciate any ideas of what to do next. I'm thinking of sending an SAR to the insurer, to see if that will allow me to obtain a copy of the recording, and assuming it is as clear as I remember it to be, taking the case to an ombudsman?
All advice gratefully received!