Latest Insurance News and Press Release

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We always want to give our animals the best health care they can get. But when things are so expensive such as hospitalization, medication and treatment how can we do that? The cost of all this stuff would be around $3000. Pets are not just animals, to most they are family. So, pet insurance allows you as the pet owner to have better options for your pets health needs.

Sweden has the highest percentage of pet owners who get their pets insurance. Sweden has a whopping 49%, Canada has 19%, but The United States only has 3%. Here is an overview of the good and bad when getting pet insurance. This will help you to make the best decision for your furry friend.

The Good

The major concept of getting a pet insurance policy is so just in case something would happen where you couldn’t come up with a huge amount of money for an accident or a medical emergency for you furry friend they would be provided for already.

The cost of any Vet visit or supplies is going up in rate very fast. There are already advanced medications that veterinarians can use to get your pet better if he is sick. If you get the best pet insurance plan they can also include things such as spay, neuter, vaccinations and flea medication for coverage.

Pet Insurances do not only cover medical needs. They can also cover things such as poster, financial assistance, posters, and advertising for pet owners who have had their pet stolen. Insurance companies can even help you to get a new pet.

The Bad

Pet insurance varies a lot in price. Some are very expensive while others have lower plans. It all depends on what kind of coverage you need to get for your pet. You have to decide what kind of coverage you want so you can get the right insurance for pet that you need.

Pet insurance companies will take into consideration lots of things about your animal so some may be harder to get a plan for then others. For example if you have a dog that has prior sicknesses or is old then you may have problems getting a good insurance plan. Most of the pet insurance companies will not pay the fees up front for you, in most cases you will have to pay the fees first and then your insurance company will send you the money back later.

Lawyers acting for families affected by Europe's worst peacetime fire in 2005 say the oil company has yet pay damages

Four years on from the Buncefield oil depot explosion, reckoned to be the largest peacetime fire in Europe, lawyers representing 275 locals say that only "between 15 and 20" of their claims have been fully settled by the oil company responsible.

Residents near the Hertfordshire site, which went up in flames after an explosion that measured 2.4 on the Richter scale, have received compensation payouts from insurers, but are still pursuing claims against the oil company Total UK for uninsured loss, personal injury, as well as for loss of earnings and falling house prices.

No one was killed in the blaze but 43 people were injured and 2,000 forced to abandon homes. Some families claim to be still recovering from the explosion that took place at 6.01am on Sunday, 11 December 2005, and was said to have been heard more than 100 miles away.

David Mitchell, a TV producer who lives with his family about 400 metres from the site , says images are "still vivid" in his memory. "The whole house was shaking and bits of ceiling were coming down. There was a huge roar that went on for ages. It was terrifying."

Mitchell's first response was to check on his two children (five and eight at the time) who were still in their beds, unharmed but "covered with rubble". He then ran outside: "It seemed like there were flames 100 metres wide and half a mile high."

In March 2009 the High Court ruled that Total would have to foot a bill of possibly more than £750m in damages for claims arising from the Buncefield fire. Chevron, the US oil giant that co-owns the site, was cleared of liability. Last month, Total pleaded guilty to two health and safety charges, as well as to polluting water.

Cash first spoke to Heidi Brazier and her husband, Carl, in December 2006 on the first anniversary of the fire, when they and their seven children, were spending a second Christmas in a hotel. Their insurer has so far paid out more than £100,000 on their property, and they are claiming a further £25,000 in uninsured loss from Total, including replacement windows, kitchen worktops and a bathroom suite.

"How can a company even contemplate running the site again when they haven't compensated those affected by the blast they caused?" asks Heidi. "It is such an insult to us."

Des Collins, of Hertfordshire law firm Collins Solicitors, is acting for many of the families. "Total has been and continues to be impossible to deal with as far as these claims are concerned," he says. "We're four years on and we have been acting for 275 people and 15 to 20 claims have settled. The trouble is they offer ludicrously low amounts of money."

A spokesman for Total insists that 92% of the claims "are either settled or were insured, and we are working hard to resolve the remaining claims ... Any suggestion that Total is in any way hindering the settlement of claims is misleading and factually incorrect."

Collins says the Braziers' total claim is far larger than the £25,000 uninsured loss and would include a substantial claim for loss of earnings. Carl lost his job as a senior manager at National Grid, because of a heart condition caused by blood pressure following the explosion.

Many families have been unable to sell their homes. Collins has 15 clients, including the Braziers and Mitchells, who are claiming for diminution of value in their properties as well as for pollution of the environment. Collins says Land Registry searches indicate a "13% price differential" between house prices in East Hemel, 2,00mowhere the site is, and West Hemel.

Mitchell, who has so far received about £85,000 under his insurance policy with Norwich Union Direct, says the area still looks like a war zone.

"We are not trying to make a profit but we would like some sort of compensation for the way that they have turned our lives upside down," he says.

Despite last month's ruling, he says, "No one has said sorry to us for allowing this to happen."

Ashley Seager's expensive NatWest policy failed to pay out, so he complained to the ombudsman – only for the label of quality to be dismissed as 'meaningless'

NatWest's travel insurance was one of the main reasons that I, like so many other of the bank's customers, have an Advantage Private account. For an annual fee of £240 it says it is "packed with exclusive features", chief among them its five-star Defaqto-rated annual worldwide travel insurance, which the bank claims is worth £160 alone.

Last year, I put it to the test. I took my family to Canada on holiday – only to be stranded by the collapse of Zoom Airlines. But instead of the insurance kicking in and returning us home, NatWest refused to pay out. To my surprise – and cost – it said the insurance did not cover the failure of a scheduled airline.

Furious, I took my case to the Financial Ombudsman. Surely, I argued, "five-star" had to mean that it was a fully comprehensive policy that would cover me in most eventualities – such as, in my case, a scheduled airline going bust. After all, NatWest proudly displays its five-star rating prominently over its literature for the Advantage Private account.

A year later, I have finally had my complaint judged by the ombudsman. He has found in favour of NatWest, and I won't be getting any compensation. But the reason why I've been rejected makes for interesting reading. The ombudsman, it appears, thinks that the five-star ratings that financial companies use to promote their products are entirely meaningless.

"I do not consider that there is any common agreement as to what the phrase means. In my judgment the term "five-star" has no specific meaning and amounts to nothing more than "puff"," wrote ombudsman Reidy Flynn in her judgment.

I contacted the ombudsman's office to discuss the lack of logic, but it declined to comment. Its basic judgment is that the Natwest Advantage Private bundled account with its five-star travel insurance was not obliged, in any way, to cover for the failure of an airline, or any other transportation company. I should have read the small print, no matter how small.

My complaint had made the following points: that it was unreasonable that a five-star policy did not cover airline failure – any normal person would expect to have such a thing covered if they were travelling abroad; that it was unreasonable that such an exclusion would not be on the list of "significant exclusions" at the front of the policy; and that it was unreasonable that it should be buried in the small print.

I had tried to find out, prior to travelling, whether this point was covered but could not get through to NatWest on the phone, or find the relevant documents on its website. I could not find the documents at home, either, although NatWest insists they were sent. So I relied on the "five-star" rating, thinking it sounded good.

I have since learned that across the insurance industry not many policies cover airline failure. But the Post Office does, and that's not an obscure little company. It would have cost £1-1.50 per person for NatWest to cover their policy holders for a year against airline failure. Was it reasonable to expect them to have done so for its premium account customers? You might think so, but NatWest did not, nor did the ombudsman.

Defaqto was bemused by the ombudsman's comments. "I am surprised it has couched it in those terms," said its head of research, Brian Brown. "Our ratings are independent but do not purport to offer any kind of legal guarantee of what a product may contain. People should check the details."

He denied that banks and insurers pay a fee to Defaqto to use their ratings, implying the company was biased towards issuing "five-star" ratings. He added that the company only issued five-star ratings on 10-12% of products and no comnpany pays to appear in its analysis. The bulk of its revenue comes from a business-to-business database it compiles and sells to banks and insurers.

Perhaps, though, if the ombudsman service thinks five-star ratings are meaningless and "puff", it, or another authority, should move to ban them? That's the only conclusion a reasonable person could reach.

Travel insurer agrees reader's friends were due a full refund

My elderly neighbours are having terrible difficulties claiming money back from Insure and Go after they had to cancel a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the US to visit family. They have had some money back, but it seems the airline they were due to use is withholding a large chunk of the £2,487 they paid. They have been caused much distress and ill health due to the worry. EW, Braintree, Essex

This case has taken some considerable time to unpick, but here goes. Your neighbours paid £2,487 for four return flights to San Francisco through travel agents Chelmsford Star Coop and then, sensibly, took out their own travel insurance with Insure and Go, paying £180 for a single trip policy.

Due to ill health, the trip had to be cancelled and a claim was submitted to Insure and Go. After deducting the airline administration fee and being reimbursed the numerous US taxes and UK air passenger duty, there was still a shortfall of around £800 which couldn't be explained, and which your neighbours wrongly blamed on the airline. After investigation, I discovered that the flight broker used by Chelmsford Star had wrongly included the £197 fuel surcharge per ticket in the category of "tax" on the invoice, for which the insurer would not ordinarily be liable. After I pointed this out, Insure and Go agreed that the problem stemmed from the documentation it was sent and a further no-quibble refund of £788 is now on the way.

Your neighbours were overjoyed and I know that this money, which they thought was lost, will make a big difference to their lives. If ever there was a case of job satisfaction as the Capital Letters columnist, this was it.

Answering your letters this week is Steve Playle, Trading Standards officer and Team Leader at Surrey Trading Standards Service.

We welcome letters but regret we cannot answer individually. Email: capital.letters@guardian.co.uk. Please include a daytime phone number.