# Agria pet insurance



## sharonbee (Aug 3, 2011)

I can't thank our vets and pet insurance enough, they have acted so quickly with our claim for Mia our beautiful girl we lost to cancer about 5 weeks ago. 
I hadn't realised how much we had spent over the past few months on treatments for our girl but we took the forms to our vets for them to fill in, they sent it all off and today we have been sent nearly £800 back. 
If anyone doesn't know which insurance to go with I would say Agria are brilliant, nothing is too much trouble either, if you need to talk to them they are always happy to listen and advise. 
I am so pleased we took out insurance.


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## Cosmills (Oct 3, 2012)

sharonbee said:


> I can't thank our vets and pet insurance enough, they have acted so quickly with our claim for Mia our beautiful girl we lost to cancer about 5 weeks ago.
> I hadn't realised how much we had spent over the past few months on treatments for our girl but we took the forms to our vets for them to fill in, they sent it all off and today we have been sent nearly £800 back.
> If anyone doesn't know which insurance to go with I would say Agria are brilliant, nothing is too much trouble either, if you need to talk to them they are always happy to listen and advise.
> I am so pleased we took out insurance.


Is that the one gccf advertise?


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

Yes, that's the gccf one. It's good to have a recommendation for them.


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## Cazzer (Feb 1, 2010)

Yes it is. It's also the one I think That gets really bad reviews, and that Albert Ross says to avoid!


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## sharonbee (Aug 3, 2011)

Yes GCCF do advise Agria, when we were looking for insurance for our queens we couldn't find one that would pay out for any birthing problems such as C-sections but Agria do insure breeding queens for these problems. I would definitely recommend them.

Cazzer...who is Albert Ross?!!


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## Cosmills (Oct 3, 2012)

sharonbee said:


> Yes GCCF do advise Agria, when we were looking for insurance for our queens we couldn't find one that would pay out for any birthing problems such as C-sections but Agria do insure breeding queens for these problems. I would definitely recommend them.
> 
> Cazzer...who is Albert Ross?!!


Thought so ... I got a quote from them last week for a breeding policy ... Not to bad, just hope it does wot it says on the tin lol


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## Cazzer (Feb 1, 2010)

Albert Ross is a member on here who knows an awful lot about insurance following a very bad experience with I think agria


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

Albert Ross is a member on here who does some sort of pet insurance review. I know Agria seem to get a lot of bad press. I looked at them for covering breeding too but decided I'm okay just putting money aside.


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## sharonbee (Aug 3, 2011)

Oh right, I thought he was a celebrity. Sorry to hear he had bad experiences. from my own experience they have proved to be really good for us.:smile5:


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## catcoonz (Aug 4, 2012)

hats good to know Agria pays out with no problems, ive heard so many bad things about them i stuck with Petplan.

Will need to have alook at this then ready for next time.


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## AlbertRoss (Feb 16, 2009)

Bit of a lengthy response coming up.... 

As you asked - my experience with Agria was with them as brand name insurers for the Kennel Club. (They took up with the GCCF fairly recently. In both cases they pay the organisations considerable amounts of money to be the 'official' insurers).

We bought a puppy, from a very well regarded breeder. The breeder had a full health check done before releasing the dog to us and on the vet's report it clearly stated that the heart had been checked and that the puppy was in perfect health.

The day after we got the puppy we took her to our own vet for a health check. Once again - perfect health.

After a few weeks we took puppy for gentle exercise in a local park. For no apparent reason she fell and took a few seconds to recover and get up and go. We just thought it was a stumble and thought no more about it.

A week later I took her to the park again and she was on an extending lead which allowed her to run about. One of the games we played was that I'd walk in one direction and she'd run past me to the end of the lead. I'd turn and walk the other way and the process would repeat. However, on one such turn I felt a tug on the lead and, looking back, saw puppy lying on her side. It took me a few seconds to get to her and by the time I had she'd got to her feet. My thought was that perhaps I'd overtired her so we stopped playing and I took her home.

A couple of days after that my other half was walking her and she collapsed. This time she stayed down for some minutes. I got the car and we took her immediately to our vets. We were seen by a different vet who said that she thought, but wasn't sure, that there was a heart murmur. Another vet gave a second opinion and also thought there was a heart murmur.

We were referred to a canine heart specialist (probably the best in the world). He saw us within two days and took puppy for a full day's worth of tests. Result - badly malformed heart, faulty valves, etc. Potential going forward: either a £10,000 operation to correct the valves with a 20% chance of success, which he said he wouldn't do because the outcome was so potentially poor, or just wait until she died. His advice was - treat her as a happy puppy (which she was) and just wait for her heart to fail. He said she'd know nothing about it when it happened but she could have a good life until then. He said it could be in 5 minutes or 5 years. There was no way of knowing.

So, that's what we decided. Two days later puppy dropped dead at my feet after playing in the garden. It was painless and instant. We called our vet and they took the body for cremation. It was two days before Christmas.

And then we contacted Agria with our claim.

Firstly, despite both visits to our vet (initial and cremation) and the visit to the specialist all being for exactly the same condition Agria decided that an excess was payable on each occasion.

Then they decided that all of the premium payments for the rest of the year's insurance would be deducted from the payout. Why? Because Agria have an arrangement with a finance company (that they own) who 'finance' your monthly payments. The annual premium goes to Agria but your 'credit agreement' is with the finance company. And the credit agreement lasts for the year. All well hidden in the small print.

When, eventually, we were paid out the amount we got was trivial. And, frankly, the people we dealt with at Agria were unsympathetic, bordering on the downright rude. Even worse, we later had a letter from them which referred to the puppy as if she was still alive.

It might be argued that I should have taken more care when I took out the insurance (all my other policies were with Pet Plan, who were exactly the opposite in my dealings with them). Indeed, I should have. But, I stupidly made the assumption that because they were Kennel Club branded they would be a good insurance company to go with. Wrong!

How wrong was illustrated by a Watchdog investigation a couple of months later and a Sunday Times report not long after that. Both slated them.

I have a background of working in the City - but not in insurance. But I knew people who did. Because I'd been treated so badly I set out to find which companies would look after their clients and which wouldn't. As a result I set up my websites which give clear pictures of what insurers offer. I don't include companies like Agria, or E&L, or others that mislead. I've thrown insurers off the site where they have been found to be unethical in their dealings.

I've also written a guide to buying pet insurance which is freely available on my website and which goes through some of the tips and tricks of the trade. Unfortunately, unless I become an FSA registered insurance broker (which I really don't want to do) I cannot recommend one insurer over another, even if I have full possession of the facts about someone's requirements.

I know a lot of people from this forum have used my site and my guide and I've received a lot of feedback - all positive. Why do I do this?

Because I don't want others to go through the same appalling experience as I had - with any insurance company.


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## tisllcoons (Oct 8, 2014)

I have to concur with Albert above as my experience with Agria pet insurance is no better than his. I purchased a pedigree kitten from a breeder I know and have had a cat from before. The kitten was collected from the breeder on a Friday, having been vet checked that day. At the time of collection the breeder was unable to activate the free insurance for the kitten due to Agria being closed. The policy was activated on the Monday and I took the kitten to the vet on the Thursday as the kitten had loose stools. The vet suggested this was likely inflammation of the bowel and prescribed treatment and special diet. 
To cut a long story short the kitten became very ill in a short time and had to be put down the following week with suspect FIV.
On trying to claim the insurance, Agria played the pre-existing condition card and refused to honour the policy. 
In my opinion, Agria are all sweetness and light when trying to sell you a policy but are the complete opposite when faced with a claim and will look for any angle to escape paying out.
As a breeder myself, I have no intention of issuing any further Agria free policies to my customers as in my opinion they are not worth the paper they are written on and will instead issue PetPlan policies.


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## tylow (Feb 11, 2009)

We have three cats insured with Agria and had to claim last year when our queen retained a dead kitten and required to be neutered and numerous vet visits over several weeks. Agria were superb. They were very professional to deal with and paid out in full with no problems.


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