Mention pets and almost everybody softens. Companion animals – such as dogs and cats – are ubiquitous in Irish homes and the Covid pandemic where people were working from home increased the trend significantly. But only 30 per cent of Irish pet owners hold some form of insurance policy for their animals, far below the figures in other countries.
Part of the issue is that it can be difficult to acquire. Owners may struggle to find a policy that caters for older pets, or pets with ongoing health issues. Just five companies offer pet insurance in Ireland, compared with about 55 in the UK. And exotic animals, for instance, are not covered by any of them.
On the other side, pet insurance providers face certain challenges that do not apply to insurers in the home, travel or motor markets. Customers claim on pet insurance policies at a higher rate. About 30 per cent of policyholders claim each year versus 15 per cent for home insurance and 22 per cent for motor.
Andrew Simpson is the head of pet insurance at Cover-More Europe, which owns one of those five providers – Petinsurance.ie. The brand was initially launched in 2012 by Blue Insurance, which was acquired by the Cover-More group in 2018.
Simpson views Ireland as an emerging market. The business has seen double-digit growth most years since it entered the market. And the pandemic fuelled an increase in pet ownership, and thus a greater demand for pet insurance in Ireland, although that Covid spike appears to have flattened in the last couple of years.
“I think we are seeing more people becoming aware of pet insurance and how it can help look after their pet,” he says. “That’s not just the public but in terms of other providers beginning to look at the Irish market and thinking they might jump in and give it a try.”
Petinsurance.ie offer three types of insurance. Its accident-only product does what it suggests, while their time-limited product covers illnesses as well as injuries but expires 12 months after the date the animal’s injury or illness begins.
Lifetime pet insurance is the most popular option, as is the case across the industry.
If your pet develops a condition while insured by a lifetime policy, you can file a claim and continue to renew the insurance year on year. If your dog develops diabetes, for instance, the policy will carry on covering that condition for the rest of the animal’s life so long as you keep renewing it.
Confusion sometimes arises around what pet insurance covers. Policies typically cover unexpected veterinary bills, but things like vaccines and routine check-ups do not fall into that bracket. Nor does flea and worm control and anything related to pregnancy or birth.
Claims at Petinsurance.ie can involve accidents or injuries sustained over a long period of time, or longer-term poor health.
“When you look at it for dogs in particular, things like cruciate ligaments are a big one,” Simpson says. “The typical cost of that in terms of claims we’re paying out is around €1,500. Then you might have road accidents – typically we’re up to about €1,000 for a road accident for a dog.
“One of the things we get a lot with cats is heart murmurs, conditions of the heart. Again, a typical average claim for that is about €320. Road accidents costs are similar for a cat to what we’re seeing for dogs.”
On its website, the company advertises essential (time-limited, accident-only) cover starting at €8.33 per month for a two-year-old Irish terrier. Simpson admits that the premium varies considerably depending on the age and breed of the animal, and the type of policy you are considering.
French bulldogs, which are hugely popular but prone to a host of genetic health issues, command much higher premiums, as do pedigree dogs which are considered to be at a greater risk of inherited diseases such as cancer and blindness.
“It’s very important that people do some research about the breed they’re taking on and what likely conditions it could get as it gets older,” Simpson says. “That’s another thing we want to do – build up that information ourselves and give people a bit more of a steer on what sort of level of insurance they might need to cover that particular breed.”
Consumer watchdog, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, advises pet owners to be aware that most policies have upper financial limits on the cover they will provide and most will not pay out on conditions that arise within a fortnight of taking out the policy.
Some of the types of cover the CCPC says you can get, depending on the policies, includes vet fees for illness and injury; cover for the cost of looking after your pet if you are in hospital (eg boarding kennels or cattery fees); holiday cancellation if your pet has to go to hospital or goes missing; advertising if your pet goes missing; rewards for lost or stolen pets; death of your pet from illness or crash; theft of your pet; third-party liability and legal costs if your pet damages property or injures another person.
It is important to be clear on what is and is not covered under any policy you take out.
It also warns that, alongside pre-existing conditions, insurers will likely not pay out on claims where the injury or illness was preventable if you had gone for annual check-ups, maintained the pet’s vaccination programme or by worming of controlling fleas on the pet.
And if your pet is a controlled breed – such as certain dogs – most insurers will not entertain third-party liability claims.
Vets
Bobby Ortiz is a surgeon and head of the exotic animal service at Veterinary Specialists Ireland (VSI) – a private referral practice with bases in Meath and Cork. It’s a niche market but one where insurance cover is not available – at least for Irish pet owners.
“My biggest patients in terms of numbers are rabbits,” says Dr Ortiz. “Dental issues are quite common in them. In a horse or a dog or something, that would be insured but for these guys, it’s not.
“Some of these procedures and total costs of care for rabbits can go from €1,000 to €3,000 and there’s no insurance for them.”
VSI is an anomaly in pet healthcare. Exotic animals make up a very small portion of Irish pets, and there are scant facilities capable of dealing with them. The care provided at VSI incorporates the latest technology across general medicine.
“I’m very lucky to be at a referral hospital where we can do MRIs and CT [scans],” Ortiz says. “There’s no other place in the country that can do that. If you have insurance, it’s to pay for those expensive surgeries and there’s really no one besides myself and maybe two other people who are able to do that.
“What I tell many owners, especially with exotics, is to price up what a dog or cat would actually be to cover. What would that insurance policy be? Then look to put away the equivalent for a rabbit or something, put €25 or €30 [a month] into a savings account on your own and build your own insurance policy for it.”
Karel Verbruggen, a long-time veterinary surgeon in Oughterard, Co Galway, was made aware of VSI’s work at a conference in Killarney. He says that if insurance providers become willing to cover some of the more advanced work done by Dr Ortiz and his colleagues, it will likely result in significantly higher premiums.
“Dogs are getting chemotherapy nowadays, which they never got before. There’s a specialist who’s up in Co Meath now and they are actually able to target the cancer in dogs and they’re using radioisotopes, something they’re only just starting to use in human medicine.
“That sort of stuff now, whether the insurance companies cover all that is the question. They say the clients are willing to pay for the treatment. People get so attached to the dog and they’re part of the family. They will pay anything to get it right.”
Verbruggen has been a qualified vet since 1981 and has witnessed the rise of pet insurance from its earliest introduction in Ireland. And he has seen some providers, like Tesco, enter and then exit the pet insurance market.
He believes insurance is more beneficial for certain breeds – particularly for expensive or pedigree dogs. For crossbreed dogs that don’t tend to experience as many issues, he is likely to recommend the sort of “personal” pet health plan mentioned by Ortiz – where the owner puts money away each month to be used for pet healthcare when needed.
The spike in pet ownership over Covid was well documented, and not just in Ireland. Verbruggen noticed it in Galway but has seen ownership drop off as certain households learned they were unable to deal with pets long term.
“The trouble was, when they went back to work, some of them were handing them in then,” he says. “They found the two of them were off work and they were at home, and then some of the companies wanted them to go back to work and do so much work in the office again. There were a good few dogs handed back in and the pounds were full up really.
“It’s flattened back out again, and Madra is down here – they do a lot of rescues, and they can’t take any more dogs in. Especially the bigger dogs like the Akitas. It’s very hard to rehome those big dogs.”
Pet owners
May Watson, originally from Bedford in England but living in Dublin, adopted a tabby cat named Chomp with her partner earlier this year. Now 10 months old, they had limited information on his background but were told his mother was a farm stray. They did not opt for insurance cover.
Chomp was a sniffly kitten and developed some issues with his appetite. When he showed worrying signs of weakness, it became clear there was an issue. A vet ultimately diagnosed him with herpes virus, which requires long-term treatment and disqualifies him from an insurance policy that could aid the treatment he will require for the rest of his life.
“He has to be on painkillers now because if his mouth is too sore, he can’t eat, and that’s what makes him weak,” Watson says. “He needs supplements. He goes through probably one bottle of the painkillers a month and that’s €20 a bottle. It’s more a cost of the time but this is going to be a lifelong thing for him.
“The way it’s explained to me is, if he broke his leg and we had insurance, they would fix that. But any cost relating to the herpes – his medicine and the things he will continuously need through the rest of his life – they won’t cover that.
“We probably will get more cats and definitely we will get pet insurance immediately because it’s just not worth the hassle.”
- Sign up for Business push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our Inside Business podcast is published weekly – Find the latest episode here
