Bought By Many Eradicates 2-Week Waiting Period on Pet Insurance

As part of its mission to make pet insurance fairer for everyone, Bought By Many will remove the industry-standard two-week waiting period for customers switching insurers in August.

Until now, pet owners were not able to claim for vet treatment for illness within the first two weeks or accidents in the first 48 hours of starting a new policy. The measure was originally introduced to policies bought by customers who had no previous cover to combat fraudulent claims. Although rare, there have been cases of owners buying cover to pay for treatment they knew they would need. .

However, Bought By Many believes there is no need for a waiting period when an owner switches to another company with no break in their cover.

Enforcing the waiting period on all policies has meant owners were afraid to switch providers knowing their pet would not be covered for two weeks. And if they did switch and claim immediately, the new insurer could refuse to pay out and class the condition as pre-existing, meaning the owner would never be able to claim for it going forwards.

The industry practice creates a barrier to pet owners switching to a provider that may be offering a better price because of the fear of the gap in cover.

Bought By Many will remove the waiting period completely for those switching insurers. Pet owners will just need to prove that they were covered up until their policy with Bought By Many started if they do make a claim within 14 days of the new policy starting.

The move is the latest innovation from Bought By Many, which are committed to  improving pet insurance policies to make sure owners have access to the best and fairest cover possible. Bought By Many is  the only pet insurer to cover pre-existing conditions for pets, and it offers a range of tailored policies to suit the needs of pet owners.

Steven Mendel, CEO and Co-founder of Bought By Many commented:

“We’re determined to make pet insurance better for our customers, and dropping this waiting period is another step in the right direction. The practice traps pet owners on their policy by creating barriers to switching, it makes no sense to customers. We feel customers with back-to-back cover should be allowed to claim immediately if needed, insurance is there to help people who are making a claim in good faith. It would be great to see other insurers follow suit and remove unnecessary obstacles for customers.”