Owners Harming Pets to Make Pet Insurance Claims

New Report Shows A Rise in Fraudulent Compensation Claims

Negative stories concerning pet insurance usually focus on the large numbers of pet owners that are yet to cover their pets in case of accidents or emergencies. However, a new story from the Association of British Insurers, courtesy of the Daily Mail, shows another more horrifying side to pet insurance – one that is seeing pet owners deliberately harming or killing their pets so that they can receive a claim. In the last year fake claims such as these have risen dramatically.

With any insurance area there have always been those that will make fraudulent claims, such as those that deliberately cause car accidents to make a claim on car insurance, but the idea of harming pets is one that has received much less attention until now. But according to the Association of British Insurers the number of people making claims in such circumstances has risen by as much as 440% between 2008 and 2010. In some case ‘fake accidents’ are at the centre of the claim and these are used to cover up injuries that are not included as part of a policy.

Other cases see pets go mysteriously missing or see claims made for treatments that have not even been carried out. In some of the more shocking examples cited some owners have even killed their pets so that they can make a claim on their pet insurance policy.

And part of the problem is linked to veterinary records, which might not follow animals to new locations and as a result it can be easier to carry out frauds in a new area. Some experts, according to the Daily Mail, even say that vets must be involved in some cases for frauds to be successfully carried out.

The true scale of the number of fraudulent pet insurance claims could be higher than those presented here. Some good news has come out of this, however, as the Association of British Insurers will now be putting a database together to make it easier to pinpoint  fraudulent claims.