Scratch&Patch

Over the years I have been let down by many pet insurers. When it came to claiming with Scratch & Patch, I was pleasantly surprised. The process was simple online and they kept me informed of the progress via email. The outcome was positive aswell, they paid out on the claim.

I took out a pet insurance policy with Scratch & Patch in good faith, trusting that if anything happened to our dog, we’d be supported. Sadly, when the time came to make a claim for a necessary mammary tumour operation (a mammary strip) for our dog, Dolcie, they refused it. Their reason? They claimed the condition could have been prevented had she been spayed — even though she had already had several heat cycles, and the protective benefit of spaying is medically known to diminish after the third cycle. This wasn’t a vague or preventable issue — this was an urgent, essential procedure. Despite providing factual, scientific evidence and a detailed explanation, they continued to fall back on a vague policy clause — designed, in my view, to deny claims wherever possible. They even insisted we pay our vet for a letter just to reconsider the claim, placing additional financial strain on us during an already emotional time. I’ve now escalated the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, and I would strongly advise others to avoid this insurer. When you take out pet insurance, you expect help in your time of need — not cold policy interpretation and corporate avoidance tactics.

Awful, after a sudden illness our cat had to be PTS, I have given 1 star as our claim which was dealt with direct by our vet was paid BUT scratch and patch sent their condolences along with the message the claim had been paid and they subsequently auto renewed our policy (with no living pet on it!) after a frustrating phone call stating they could not cancel we had to wait for the policy to renew then take the first payment then call again for refund? Won’t ever use them again! Made a stressful and upsetting time even worse!

Deeply disappointed — wouldn’t recommend We were shocked by how little our policy actually covered. After our beloved dog Jack passed away, we were told that out of a £3,500 vet bill, only £40 would be reimbursed due to various internal policy limits. We were so disheartened that we didn’t even bother submitting the claim. Unsurprisingly, we decided to cancel the policy we held for our other dog — it felt pointless to keep paying for something that offered so little support when it really mattered. To add insult to injury, we were then charged a £30 cancellation fee, despite never having made a claim on that policy. I strongly advise anyone considering this company to look elsewhere for pet insurance.

Absolutely useless. Really saddened by the lack of care given. We took our dog to the vet as he had a limp, we thought maybe this was from an injury or something from his previous owners. Turns out he has arthiritis in both back legs AND luxating patella’s, NOT CAUSED BY INJURY, it’s a breeding issue. The vet even explained that there is not signs on any damage done to the legs by injury, so our guess was wrong. Scratch and Patch insurance done everything they could to not pay out despite all vet professionals saying it’s nothing related to anything pre existing, absolutely crap. Don’t waste your time paying out