Petplan Australia Reviews 7

This company takes a while to review claims. Their premium equine policy is shocking. My mare suffered from a bout of pneumonia at the start of the year - I had to jump through multiple hoops in order to claim. Now her policy is up for renewal and 'lower respiratory tract infection' has been excluded. Premium prices = subpar product with Petplan. Very, very unhappy. Will be looking at changing to another insurance company.

Petplan insurance is extortion. I have been with them for 7 years and in that time the insurance has gone up 40% The insurance has gone up a ridiculous amount over time. Below is the annual and then monthly coast over that last 7 years. I called them and tried to change the insurance but was told this could not happen because I was with an old underwriter, which of course would mean a new insurance policy would not cover any existing conditions.
Here is the breakdown how the cost have gone up.
2012 - 627.60 - 52.30 per month
2013 - 691 - $57.65 per month
2014 - 813 - $67.75 per month
2015 - 1,183,63 - $98.71 per month
2016 - 1,295.43 - $107.95 per month
2017 - 1,478.81 - $123.23 per month
2018 - 1.740.26 - $145.02 per month
2019 - 2,422.46 - $201.87 per month

Increased $1794.86 in 7 years
Total cost of insurance - $9187.19

If I could put 0 star, I definitely will.
Premium increase to $250 a month. The new underwriting team Lloyd’s underwriter MS Amlin is ridiculous, they just increase whatever amount they want as a way to make you leave.
I got the insurance for my beloved pet to have a peace of mind just in case something happen when she gets older. the new underwriter take healthier younger animals, only the sick and old stay with Allianz. I was extremely happy with Allianz as an underwriter, never had any problem with them whatsoever. But Lloyd’s underwriter MS Amlin increase mine by 300%% when I did not claim ridiculously, I am frustrated that there seems to be no law protecting us owners. Pet insurance company can increase whatever rate they want. It means we can pay insurance for 7 years with no claim, then once our animals got too old to go to another company or the insurance company think is time our animals will start to really need insurance cover, they can just increase premium ridiculously to the point that no one will be willing to pay so we would leave, so they 1, don't have to worry about paying our claims, 2, they can pocket the premiums that we paid all these years for nothing. How nuisance that is. Petplan should be ashamed of themselves for doing this to our animals. There are other underwriters that they can choose but they choose Lloyd’s underwriter MS Amlin. Almost all of my friends had now left Petplan, it means we all have pre existing conditions in our records, ant type of infections, skin, hotspot etc are all pre existing. It is so unfair to all of us that Petplan and its new underwriter doing this to us and our animals, cold hearted money driven, caring our animals, our animals are their first priority are just words to convince us to buy, they truly cannot care less about our animals, our animals to them are $$$$$ that they want but when it gets to the point where we need them most, they kick us all out by using this immoral method. Shame on you. Out of all that I known which is quite a lot, I am pretty much the last one to leave Petplan, they ruined their own representation, I would be so shock if anyone would suggest Petplan to anyone. If you are reading this as reference and someone recommended Petplan to you, before you go ahead, please ask that person to call and confirm whether their insurance is with the old underwriter Allianz or new underwriter Lloyd’s underwriter MS Amlin, if that person's is still with Allianz (which considered as older and sick animal), you are not going to get what that person gets, new insurance goes to the new underwriter, the one that increase us by 100%, 200%, 300%.
I hardly ever write review on anything, I am sharing this for people who want to get insurance for their pets. We are not complaining about how difficult it is to claim, how hard it is to communicate, what they do or do not cover, we are talking about a simple fact, 100%, 200%, 300% premium increase should shock anyone on earth.
I already left, but I will look into the relevant laws to see if any legal actions are possible, a company should not be allowed to use such method to avoid paying possible future claims. A company should not be allowed to charge a fee for a product/service but use this way to kick customers out to avoid providing what was paid for. If we paid for a insurance for years but get kick out when we need it, then the company is taking our money for nothing, that's just wrong.

Insurance for my 3 year old dog (that I have NEVER claimed anything for) has gone from $87 a month to $156! I'm now concerned how much our premium increase will be for our 6 year old that is already $132 a month! I regret choosing this insurer. They have give my three year old a life time exclusion for anything related to breathing, airways, nose related due to my vet doing a thorough check of our puppy when he first got him and noting down conditions this breed is susceptible to. My vet even wrote them a letter explaining the dog showed no signs of these issues and they still refused to cover it. They believed they know better then someone who studied study veterinary medicine. I'm making a complaint to the financial ombudsman and I suggest anyone else with this disgusting premium increase do the same! It's only a matter of time till the pet insurance industry is held accountable for their disgusting, greedy actions.

Terrible company with even worse customer service. They don't answer the phone nor reply to emails and do not even have the decency to aplogise after taking weeks to get back to you. The underwriting team (known as undereducated team) require further training. If you're looking for a quality pet insurance company that cares about you and your pet, sadly after 4 years this isn't it. Not sure what changes happened since 2015 but they were found being dodgy under Allianz and now are even worse. Check out article under choice.com.au to get insight into their dodgy dealings and ASIC sorting them out

After being a PetPlan customer for 5 years, with no claims made on PetPlans "Cover 4 Life ultimate" PetPlan has increased the premium 227% from $67 per month to $148 per month and won't explain why. For the first five years I saw an average increase of just under 5.5% which I suppose is reasonable. This is not cover for life, they are sneaky and have no intention of providing you the service they advertise.

MS Amlin do not give a sh** about you

Ever since PetPlan's new underwriter MS Amlin replaced Allianz, this company has gone to the pits.

I got emails on the 24th of this month notifying me of new premiums for each of my cats (in separate emails) less than 2 weeks before my next payment is due (my monthly payments are on the 3rd of each month).

A bit of history. Both my cats are on the same Classic 1 plan.

Vasco has arthritis and will likely need ongoing and increased care as he gets older (he is only 3). His premium went up from $28.71 to $31.38 a month.

Nuno has never had any health issues and is in perfect condition, I have only ever claimed for him once in 3 years. His premium went up from $28.71 to $46.23, a 40% increase.

Now let us set aside the ridiculous increase in Nuno's premium for a moment, and focus on the fact that the premium they chose to increase drastically was for a pet I never even claim for, and Vasco who I claim year round, only went up by a couple of dollars. Even though both my pets are on the same account, the executor on each were two different people. I do not know if this is normal, but it seems strange to me. It is as if there are no set guidelines or rules for determining premiums and each executor just picks arbitrary numbers out of the air!

Maybe they got my cats switched and meant to increase Vasco's and not Nuno's by 40%? But again the fact they were done by 2 different people makes me think this was not the case.

From Petplan's own website: "...It is understood MS Amlin did not want to take on policies relating to older or sick animals..." which to me proves this company does not care much about you and just the dollars, compared to Allianz.

MS Amlin clearly realise that pet owners cannot just switch providers (like you can with Health Insurance). Switching means that anything you were covered for by your previous provider is not covered by your new one. This means I cannot switch providers for Vasco as his arthritis would no longer be covered. MS Amlin have pet owners like me by the balls because they know our only option is to stay with them and pay whatever unfair prices they ask, or ditch having pet insurance completely.

I am sure PetPlan will reply to this review and ask to get in touch to discuss my premium. Whatever explanations you provide, a 40% increase is unacceptable and unless you reduce that back to near what it was, I will be cancelling my policy. It does not help that I have less than two weeks to decide what I want to do because they charge me a total of $77.61 which is more than I pay for Health Insurance a month.

Whatever happens, I would no longer recommend Petplan to anyone. They used to be the best, truly. Now they are the worst.