Petcover Pet Insurance Review
Petcover Pet Providing an extensive range of cover options, Petcover offers pet insurance to dogs, cats, horses and exotics, such as lizards, birds, turtles and tortoises, and small animals including guinea pigs, rats, mice, goats and more.
Who is Petcover?
Created by international pet industry experts, Petcover (which was previously two companies, Petcover and Petplan, prior to their merging) is an independently owned and operated specialist pet insurance company that has been insuring pets for more than 40 years.
Operating both overseas and within Australia, Petcover uses its expansive knowledge and expertise to offer what it states is Australia’s most comprehensive range of cover – having insured hundreds of thousands of pets over the past four decades.
Petcover pet insurance policies are underwritten by HDI Global Specialty SE, one of the world’s largest and most respected insurance underwriters.
Petcover Pet Insurance
Petcover provides a vast range of coverage options. To find out more about what Petcover plans offer, check the PDS for each cover option. Here is a summary of the types of cover offered to dogs, cats, horses and exotics.
Dog & Cat Insurance
Petcover provides three levels of cover to dogs and cats – and within each of those levels are three sub-levels. Note, each sub-level features different sub-limits and inclusions.
Safety-Net Plan for Dogs and Cats
- Economy: Annual claim limit $7,000
- Catastrophe 1: Annual claim limit $5,000
- Catastrophe 2: Annual claim limit $10,000
Mid-Range Plan For Dogs and Cats
- Core: Annual claim limit $5,000
- Vital: Annual claim limit $10,000
- Key: Annual claim limit $15,000
Superior Plan for Dogs
- Entry: Annual claim limit $10,000
- Mid-Range: Annual claim limit $15,000
- Superior: Annual claim limit $20,000
Superior Plan for Cats
- Entry: Annual claim limit $9,000
- Mid-Range: Annual claim limit $10,000
- Superior: Annual claim limit $15,000
Horse Insurance
Petcover offers four levels of horse insurance, each with different inclusions, exclusions, extras and limits. Inclusions on specified levels of cover include death from illness, death from injury, loss by theft or straying, vet fees and third party liability.
- Basic: Designed for horses aged 30 days to 18 years
- Senior Plan A: Designed for horses aged 19-29 years
- Senior Plan B: Designed for horses aged 19-29 years
- Horse Liability: Designed for horses aged 30 days to 30 years
Exotic Insurance
Petcover also provides three levels of cover for exotic animals, such as lizards, birds, turtles and small mammals. Again, you will need to read the PDS for the specifics on each type of cover to gain a full understanding of what cover is provided.
Value
- Birds: Annual claim limit up to $2,000
- Reptiles: Annual claim limit up to $2,000
- Turtles: Annual claim limit up to $2,000
- Small Mammals: Annual claim limit up to $2,000
Plus
- Birds: Annual claim limit up to $4,000
- Reptiles: Annual claim limit up to $4,000
- Turtles: Annual claim limit up to $4,000
- Small Mammals: Annual claim limit up to $4,000
Premier
- Birds: Annual claim limit up to $6,000
- Reptiles: Annual claim limit up to $6,000
- Turtles: Annual claim limit up to $6,000
Age Limits
- Birds: 12 weeks to 25 years
- Reptiles: 8 weeks to 15 years
- Turtles & Tortoises: 12 weeks to 30 years
- Small Mammals: 8 weeks to 5 years
What We Love
- Award Winner: Petcover retained Canstar’s Pet Insurance Star Ratings & Awards for Outstanding Value within the Accident and Illness Pet Insurance category through 2020 and 2021. Then, in 2021, the provider also picked up Canstar’s award for Outstanding Value within the Comprehensive Pet Insurance category, becoming the only award winner to rate within both categories.
- Low Cost: No one wants to pay more than they need to for pet insurance. Happily, Petcover proved to have some of the lowest premiums within our comparison of 20 pet insurance plans. It’s also worth noting that Petcover often allows new customers to save even more in the first year, providing a range of introductory offers that change over time. To find Petcover’s current intro offer, check out our promo codes and discounts page before you apply.
- Multi-Pet Discount: While the actual discount offered is not readily provided, Petcover does advertise the fact that it offers pet owners a multi-pet discount when insuring “3+ eligible pets”.
- High Annual Claim Limit: As you can see from the pet cover options outlined above, Petcover pet insurance is very far from one-size-fits-all. As such, we don’t have space to cover all the annual claim limits on each cover type and level – but, it is worth noting that the highest level of cover for dogs extends to $20,000, while for cats, it reaches $15,000. If you need a higher limit such as this, Petcover could be a great option.
- Extensive Range of Coverage: Again, Petcover has a huge range of cover options. Where some providers only offer one level of cover, Petcover offers nine sub-levels of cover for dogs and cats.
- Horse and Exotics Cover: On top of that, many pet insurance providers only cover dogs and cats, whereas Petcover offers a variety of cover levels for both horses and exotics, including birds, small mammals, lizards, turtles and tortoises. Petcover states it offers Australia’s only exotic pet insurance cover for veterinary fees, including alternative and complementary treatment, death from injury or illness, advertising and reward in case of a missing pet and much more.
- Customisable Cover: Aside from its vast array of cover types, Petcover also allows you to tailor your cover, providing more flexibility to suit both your pet, and your budget. As an example, depending on the type of cover you opt for, you may have the option to choose your excess and your co-payment.
- Third Party Liability: While many pet insurance plans do not offer third party liability cover, Petcover provides this feature on specified cover levels either as an inclusion or add-on. While the feature varies across Petcover’s offering, you may be able to benefit from up to $1 million on third party liability claims, helping to reduce the costs you could be liable for in the event of an accident or incident involving your pet.
- Inclusions: One important factor we noted as we compared Petcover pet insurance options were the various inclusions on offer that are not generally found on other pet insurance plans we have reviewed. While inclusions vary depending on cover type, here are some worth drawing attention to.
- Death from Illness (this offers cover for the price you paid for your pet – or the market value – if your pet dies of an injury or an illness before 8 years of age).
- Death from Injury (this offers cover for the price you paid for your pet – or the market value – if your pet dies of an injury or an illness before 8 years of age).
- Emergency Boarding (this offers cover for the cost of boarding your pet at a licensed kennel, or towards the cost of someone looking after your pet while you are an inpatient in hospital).
- Advertising & Reward (this offers cover to assist with the cost of advertising and the reward offered if your pet is stolen or goes missing).
- Loss by Theft or Straying (this offers cover for the price you paid for your pet – or the market value – if your pet is stolen or goes missing and does not return).
- Holiday Cancellation (this offers cover for the value of any unused travel and accommodation expenses that you have paid for due to your pet requiring lifesaving medical help).
- Quarantine Expenses & Loss of Documents (this offers cover for costs associated with your pet being quarantined; to get duplicate documents and/or extra costs to travel home if the delay in getting duplicate documents has caused you to miss your scheduled travel arrangements).
- Emergency Repatriation (this offers cover for the costs to get your pet home if your pet is too unwell to travel home the same way it travelled to your holiday destination).
- Quick & Easy Claims: Petcover states is has a veterinary-trained claims team. As such, it says it offers a quick and easy claims process, which can either be completed online or via mail.
- Lifetime Cover: While it is not offered on all cover types, Petcover pet insurance offers cover for life on many of its plans. This essentially means you can continue to enjoy cover, even as your pet ages, as long as there is no break in cover.
What To Consider
- Overwhelming Options: If you like to keep things simple, you may feel somewhat overwhelmed by the options offered by Petcover pet insurance. While choice can a good thing – allowing you to choose exactly the cover you need – you may be put off all the time it takes to compare all of those options and then read through the small print on each.
- Age Limits: Age limits vary across each of Petcover’s pet insurance plans. We noted the age limits on the exotics cover above, but as another example, simply within the dog and cat Safety-Net Plan, there were varying age limits applied within each sub-level. For Economy, pets must be aged 8 weeks and over, while for the Catastrophe 1 & 2 plans, pets must be aged 8 weeks to 7 years – or 8 weeks to 4 years within select breeds – to apply.
- Mixed Reviews: Checking out online review site ProductReview.com.au, there are some incredibly varied evaluations to be found – with Petcover pet insurance receiving a dubious average of 2.9 out of 5 stars. While some reviewers praised the provider, others called out the larger-than-necessary year-on-year jump in premiums (especially among long-term customers), the lack of communication, and the less-than-awesome customer service.
- No GapOnly: While Petcover draws attention to its “quick and easy” claims process, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t offer GapOnly claims. With GapOnly, you pay less upfront when you visit the vet, instead accessing real-time claims so you only pay the gap.
- Waiting Periods: When it comes to pet insurance, there is no way around waiting periods. All providers have them. With that being said, while Petcover’s waiting periods for injuries (0 days) and cruciate ligament treatment (6 months) are standard, it does have a longer wait on illnesses than certain other providers (28 days or 30 days, depending on the plan). It also has a 365-day waiting period on brachycephalic airway obstruction.
- Sub-Limits: Because Petcover’s plans are so wide-ranging, we can’t get into all the sub-limits the provider puts in place. However, if you plan to take out pet insurance with Petcover, be sure to check the various sub-limits that could affect the amount you can claim on certain condition
