What is pet insurance excess?

Pet insurance excess is a fixed amount of money that you pay when making a claim, agreed at the beginning of your policy. Excess can lower the price of your premium as it is an agreement that you cover a portion of the costs of a claim. 

Your premium is calculated by considering multiple ‘risk’ factors including the breed, age and health of your pet (this is separate to excess). 

Excess is a fixed figure that remains the same for the agreed year of your policy, but it may increase once your pet reaches a certain age. Some policies offer you the option to choose your own excess amount to help customise your insurance to your own needs. This gives you the option of paying a higher excess fee in order to lower your premium, but you should only consider this if it is likely to be within your budget to pay a larger excess at the point of claim.

Pet insurance for older cats and dogs can often come with co-payments. A co-payment is a percentage of your vet bill that you would pay in addition to the fixed excess. It tends to be 10-20% of your total bill (after excess has been deducted) depending on your policy and the age of your pet. Just like excess, it is agreed at the beginning of your policy so you won’t be caught out by it, and it may lower the price of your premium. However, you will need to make a co-payment for every vet bill you receive so you shouldn’t agree to a co-payment price that is above your likely budget.

With John Lewis Pet Insurance for pets aged under nine, you can choose to pay a voluntary co-payment of 10% or 20% towards the rest of the vet treatment costs, in addition to your chosen fixed excess. For pets aged nine years or over, you must pay a co-payment of 20% on the rest of the vet’s treatment costs, in addition to your chosen fixed excess.