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@ExTra
I would like to know too...
Yes I am happy to share:
As long as you have made a claim of any nature, you are barred from upping your policy to the next brackets. I argued with them that I understand if I'd made a claim for an on-going / chronic condition that is unresolved or there to stay for life like diabetes or heart mur mur etc, then it'd be fair, but since the lump that Patch had has been resolved and she is not undergoing any treatment / being monitored specifically for this. It is, medically, a done deal, fully healed, just like a broken leg or what have you. The said it doesn't matter because once a claim, any claim has been made, we are now not allowed to up the policy to, the next one which is £7500 max payout for a year (we are currently on £3000).
Patch is turning 5 soon and the vet's recommendation is that £3000 a year isn't going to go very far if she ever develops any long term problem / more complicated issues etc, especially as she gets older, it'd be harder to get high level insurance deals. Which is why I thought I might get her better cover now, particularly I am earning a bit more this year than I have ever done... At the moment, she has been given a perfectly clean bill of health from all the pre-op checks, so I am really annoyed that they are not willing to up the policy when there is nothing outstanding, if anything, she's had a full body MOT to prove that.
I have spoken to 3 different insurers today with regards to switching / this clause or similar in particular, while all 3 of them won't accept pre-existing conditions (which is more than fair), one of them said there would be a 2 years exclusion on the lump, and the other said the only time they won't allow customers to up their policies is when a claim has been made for chronic conditions - diabetes, heart problems, arthritis that requires more than 1 claim for the same issue etc. I think both are reasonable.
A blanket bar for life on a one off, standalone, non recurring illness is just plain stupid. If they'd told me when I took out the policy, I'd have gone for the higher one to begin with. Equally, if they'd told me about this stupid clause at the time of making a claim, I might not have bothered with making it, as the total payout was just shy of £800, which I could still afford to pay for it if that means I'd retain my rights to chop and change my policy in the future (now).
It'd be interesting to see if they will call me back on Monday, as they said they would, and if so, what will they say. I think they might have shot themselves on the foot on 2 conversations I had with them - they repeatedly said it's not fair on me that if I wasn't informed etc etc, they were going to work out a quote for the £7500 policy for me. Maybe these are mistakes from their low level CS advisors, but as far as I am concorned, they have admitted error for non disclosure and they have made a verbal promise that they would up the policy. The only problem is that the person who said all of these 'does not exist' anymore.