Why is your car insurance going up? Ask a vet...

Like thousands, probably millions of other people up and down the country, I got more than mildly annoyed recently when my new cover note for my car insurance dropped through the letterbox.

I opened the envelope it arrived in to read that that after another year of low level mileage, no accidents, no endorsements, moving to a new house with a garage and off road parking, my insurance had gone up by around £120.00.

I did the usual thing... threatened to call them immediately, marched around the house then stuffed the letter into the appropriate file in the desk and did nothing. That was 2 months ago...

A couple of days ago I was out and about and on the radio was a debate about how the cost of living was going up ('existing' might be a more apt word but I digress), and in particular... insurance.

I won't quote all the figures here because I haven't sourced them, I am only repeating part of what the guy on the radio was telling Vicky Derbyshire; but it seems, the essence of what he was saying was that it is all the fault of the vet...

Allow me to explain. He, the man on the radio who I understood to be from an insurance company (though I might be guessing here), recited a story where a dog was insured and only £40 in premiums had been paid before the dog had to have a cruciate ligament fixed. The owner claimed for the treatment and the insurers had no real choice but to cough up. Cost? £3700! Nearly four grand!

On the same radio show another dog-owner complained that her dog's insurance had increased by 52%!

In the case of the cruciate ligament... the vet got paid by the dog-owner; the dog-owner got paid by the insurers. And because the insurers were more than a little bit 'miffed' and feeling a bit left out at not paid by somebody, anybody, decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to increase everyone else's premiums to rectify their own situation. So because we have been driving safely, have moved to a nicer area and not had our possessions stolen, we pay more so they get paid off too. All this because a dog got sick. Is this fair?

Insurance can in simple terms, be considered a bet. Where the dog was concerned, the insurers bet the owner that the dog would not need to go to the vet. Alas, it did and the insurers had to pay out. That's the bet and the insurance people lost.

But hang on a minute. These two parties entered into this contract/bet; whatever you care to call it together and without consulting me. I was nowhere near, had no knowledge of this arrangement and was required to sign no paperwork. Yet, I have somehow become involved with reimbursing the insurance company? Nowhere on my house policy, car policy or any other policy does it state that the premiums will be ramped up if an animal gets poorly.

This pisses me off. Essentially, the vet (or anyone else that provides a service that you can insure against for that matter), seem to have gotten the rest of us over a barrel. Think about it; a claim goes into the insurers who are obliged to pay; who then add these payouts onto the next years policies of their own 'loyal' policy holders. Whatever they end up paying out... they are always going to get it back with interest. A lot of interest.

Don't get me wrong, I am not anti-animal or against ownership of animals (provided they are looked after correctly), but whether or not to own an animal is down to the individual and shouldn't have affect anyone else, especially in the pocket.

Regarding the dog; the one with the dodgy, doggy, cruciate ligament. What if the insurers were not prepared to pay out? Would the owners have still gone ahead with the treatment then? Now there's a question...

I'm rambling now but my advice (or the man's advice from the radio if you prefer), is change your insurance provider. The reason they whack up the premiums is because they assume (correctly so, for the vast majority of us), that we won't be bothered with going through the aggravation of having to close one policy only to open it again with another someone else. And I have to say for the most part they are right. Right, in my case anyway...

In short then, people love their animals and will get almost any treatment for it provided someone else is going to pay. The vet knows this and will charge whatever he or she wants. The pet-owners know that with the right policy, money is no object. The policy brokers, though reluctant to pay out, often will where animals are concerned because they don't want to be seen to be causing any further suffering to the animal by not paying out and so delaying the over-priced treatment. The insurers 'loyal' customers will make up the slight dip in profit by paying more for their own policies upon their renewal for no apparent reason.

Everyone wins (the vet, the owner, the insurer) in their own way except for the loyal, responsible customer who is only trying to protect him or herself from financial hardship if some future calamity should occur... in their own lives, not in someone else's.

Or is what I've written above just a complete load of bollocks?