Insurance - please be careful - Little Long Sorry

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Countrygirl

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We lost our treasured mare at the weekend, after 2 days of vet care, due to a horrendous temperature - no cause for which was found. I called the insurance claim line on Friday who said they would send out the forms, which was just for the vet treatment at that point. Saturday morning we found that our darling girl had died in the night.
On one of the worst days of our lives I tried to be practical and get everything sorted out. I have never claimed on any insurance policy before - even though she has been insured with the same company for the past 11 years. Have you ever tried to get advice at the weekend - you can't not with our insurers, they only have 24 hr lines for cars and household!!! I ended up spending an hour on the phone trying to get the answer to one question!!!
How am I supposed to know how, when, if my treasured mare needs a post mortum. No one could answer the question - in my mind this is a case of animal welfare, what do they expect you to do wait until 9am on a Monday morning to get an answer!! Customer care said in the end I should do whatever I thought was best. In the end I arranged for the mare to be collected and went to have a look to see if anything could be found, nothing was.
Anyway after making a comlaint had a call today from insurance who listened to what I had said and agreed it was wrong that there was no helpline available at the weekend, but she had also never heard of a case where a pm was requested. Then I was told that I could have paid to have a pm done and they may require the cause of death, by means of a post mortum.
No offense but are we all supposed to be insurance experts and mindreaders - who on earth am I supposed to make sense of anything in the state I was in on Saturday morning - so much for specialist equine insurance.
Has anyone else had any issues like this and problems with their claims - pm me if you prefer.
Apologies for rambling, but I found the whole situation really hard to deal with anyway without the insurance company causing more stress.
 
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Very sorry to hear about your mare.
Personally I would put your complaint in writing. If it changes their procedures (surely they could have something set up on their computer system for 'out of hours equine' that their car/household could read out??) then that's good, and if not at least it will back up your claim shoudl they try to wriggle out of paying out due to lack of PM.
 
I lost my boy last July on a Saturday. I decided I wanted a PM done anyway for my sake and my vet (who was gutted after a long illness that we lost him). When it came to the claim for loss of animal she only had to sign that he had been put down in accordance to BEVA guidlines (animal welfare stuff). She didn't need to disclose anything and they never asked. The insurance company never knew what caused his illness or what killed him and they never asked, they just paid out. They didn't pay for the PM. Was your vet not able to advise you what to do? I would have thought they must have come across this before?

I was insured with the NFU.
 
(meant to add... then it wouldn't let me edit!)

I'm really sorry for your loss. I'd had my boy 10 yrs and he was everything to me. It's only been very recently that I've begun to feel that life is finding a norm again. I cried literally for about 3 months!
 
I am really sorry to here of the sad loss of your mare. We have had a problems with high temperatures and racing hearts several times due to virus over the last 2 seasons hunting. One of our boys had it again 3 weeks ago and was very bad. He went from absolutely fine to very ill within hours.

Usually in your policy wording it will say whether post mortem is required which generally is if your vet is unable to confirm cause of death. However, not many people would think of doing this when they are obviously so upset. I agree that you should put your concerns to the Company in writing.....and Dubsie's suggestion re out of hours message is a good one. I am sure that your vet will be accomodating when it comes to filling out the paperwork!!
 
My main concern is that lack of knowledge in the insurance company.
She had been under veterinary care for the 2 days previously, had blood etc done. Her temp had come down on friday night so thought things were looking up - her temperature was 104.8 on Thursday morning and 104.4 on Friday morning and 101.2 Friday night. I never expected in a million years to find she had died on Saturday morning - therefore it makes me wonder even more as she was not humanely destroyed that they may try and dispute the entire claim.
Mind head is all over the place at the moment anyway and jst really find it difficult to understand that the insurance company can put more emphasis on cars / household.
Sorry for the rambling. Distraught is not the word for how we are feeling at the moment.
 
Make a note of the number!! I am sure you will have no problem with claim but the more info at your fingertips, just in case, never does any harm. Generally speaking as long as not a pre existing condition or any suspect circumstances ie. only just taken out the insurance then there should not be a problem.
 
I am so sorry for the loss of your mare and for the distress you must be feeling. I agree with everyone who has said to put your views to them in writing.
 
Very sorry to hear about your mare, I lost my beloved cob in very similar circumstances and we had a post mortem done but nothing conclusive showed up.
 
Thank you everyone for all your wishes. It just worries me that someone else might end up in the same situation.
All points noted!! Thanks for being realistic - I think at times like this you can loose your perspective a little bit.
 
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