Napo Pet Insurance Review.

Disclaimer - This post is about our experience and thoughts on Napo. We haven't been asked to write it and are merely stating our opinion. You may have a differing opinion and that's fine! This review also contains our Napo "Invite a Friend" link - it is clearly marked.

The "Too Long; Didn't Read" Summary

Despite some concerns, we bought Napo pet insurance in July 2022. During November 2022 we had to claim a large sum. Napo paid out, without issue, a couple of weeks later. Excellent cover at a very competitive price.

(Following my July 2023 Update, we still recommend Napo.)

There is a link to receive a £30 Amazon voucher with Napo at the bottom of this post here.

Did We Need Pet Insurance?

This is what we asked ourselves after bringing Lumi home. We'd had insurance for our cat, Tammy, but in her lifetime we gave the insurance companies more money than we ended up claiming for vet bills. The premiums also became extremely expensive once she reached a certain age.

We debated the idea of putting money aside each month instead of paying the insurance premiums and we may still end up doing that once Lumi becomes too old for affordable premiums. At the end of the day though, we could insure Lumi for £21 a month using Napo and hopefully get some decent cover to give peace of mind.

Five Months Later - We Needed Pet Insurance

So we took out Napo insurance for Lumi at the beginning of July 2022, come November 2022 we were very relieved that we had that insurance.

Around the middle of November, Lumi had started being sick and had diarrhoea. She was refusing to eat anything and generally not being her energetic self. Needless to say, we were incredibly worried and took her off down the vets straight away. 

To cut a long story short, Lumi was admitted to the veterinary hospital for 3 nights and was scanned, x-rayed, tested and put on a drip. She was diagnosed with a bad case of Giardia and could then receive treatment that would eventually get her back to normal.

All of this left us with a bill just over £2300. Enter Napo ... 

Making a Claim With Napo

Our vets are happy to deal with insurance companies directly. Having said that, I don't think they had ever heard of Napo. The claim process went something like this -

1. We gave the vet the link to Napo's vet portal and our policy number.
2. Napo e-mail us asking us to confirm we're happy for them to review the submitted claim.
3. 4 days later they confirm via e-mail that they've received our approval.
4. 7 days on and they e-mail to say the claim is in the "final stages".
5. 3 further days pass and we receive an e-mail to say the claim has been approved and the vet would receive the payment within 5-7 days.

The claim process took between 2 to 3 weeks and the full amount, minus the £75 excess, was sent straight to the vet.

The Relief

Having the unexpected bill covered by insurance was a huge relief. The process was ridiculously easy for us (partly thanks to our vet for submitting the claim) and it was all wrapped up fairly quickly. A big thank you to Napo for helping us take good care of Lumi.

I mentioned earlier that we had considered putting away money each month rather than paying insurance premiums. As it turns out, we had barely paid £100 in premiums before having to make a big claim. The relief that we had plumped for insurance in the end was huge.

Who Are Napo? Why Did We Pick Them?

I found Napo when using GoCompare to search prices. My first thoughts were "who the heck are Napo?". A quick Google for "Napo" suggested they were the union for probation officers. Searching "Napo Pet Insurance" brought up more relevant results. There were some limited reviews on Google and Trustpilot which were mainly positive. I'll admit that it did feel a bit of a risk going with a new start-up company that has very little track record but I didn't really expect us to have to rely on them so soon.

Putting aside worries about being new, we went with Napo as they are very competitively priced and offer good levels of cover. We went for their £21 a month cover that included £8,000 of vet fees. Other insurers didn't really come close to this level of cover at this price.

vs ManyPets and PetPlan

After much research, I ended up with a short list of Napo, ManyPets and PetPlan. All the polices I looked at were classed as lifetime cover. This covers a pet up to the limit every year no matter if the condition is new or continuous. 

At the time of my research (prices will have gone up) this is how the 3 options broke down for a similar level of cover -

*As long as the dog has had a dental check-up in the last 12 months.

There are other categories but insurance companies use different wording so it becomes difficult to compare.

ManyPets charge for "extras" that are included as standard in many other polices and also have a higher excess. The excess can be lowered for a higher premium. You're also given the option to pay roughly 8% more to get 20% back if you don't make a claim within the year. Recent reviews on TrustPilot have been rather poor.

PetPlan includes a 10% discount on your first year when ordering via their website. They appear to be very well reviewed and offer a good level of cover but their premiums are higher than most others. The excess, at £110, is also higher than the £75 of Napo.

Additional Benefits 

It's worth mentioning that Napo offer 24/7 video vet appointments as part of the insurance plan. We've never tried these so can't comment on how good they are but reviews for them on Trustpilot suggest they are very helpful. The service is provided by FirstVet.

Since we first took out Lumi's insurance, Napo have added some additional dog training videos and online classes. These are found in the "Puppy Academy" and "Dog Training Hub" sections in the Napo dashboard. As of December 2023, the training videos are rather limited, so hopefully they add more over time. One slight issue is the fact the videos are recorded in the portrait format - ideal for mobiles but not great for laptop and desktop users.

Conclusion

It felt like a gamble taking out Lumi's insurance with Napo but it has worked out extremely well for us. A very competitive level of cover at a price cheaper than most of the big players. The claiming process was very smooth and straight forward as well. 

Obviously we now have to wait and see how much Lumi's premium will rise by at our next renewal date. Fingers crossed, as Giardia is not an on-going condition, we don't get penalised too much for making a claim.

(Read my July 2023 Update to see how much Lumi's premium increased.)

Overall we'd certainly recommend Napo pet insurance! 

July 2023 Update

Making a Second Claim

At the beginning of May we ended up making a 2nd claim on Lumi's pet insurance. Once again, this was for tummy trouble but fortunately it was no where near as bad as her previous case of Giardia. We ended up with a bill of £440 and this was paid out by Napo without issue. The difference this time was the fact the payment was made directly to us rather than to the vets.

Our First Policy Renewal

Having claimed over £2700 in our first year, we were a little concerned about what would happen to the price for our first renewal. The renewal quote arrived at the start of June.

Our monthly premium was to change from £21.00 to £29.33.

This works out at roughly a 40% increase. Such a large percentage increase doesn't sound that good but it works out at just under an extra £100 for the next year. Considering the amount that we claimed, paying the extra £100 sounds reasonable. We might change our tune if the policy goes up by 40% every year but hopefully Lumi will avoid any large vet bills for the foreseeable future and increases to the premium will be considerably less. 

For now, we continue to recommend Napo!

£30 Amazon Voucher For New Customers

Napo provide a link to invite new customers that wish to take out a policy. Using the button below will get you a £30 Amazon voucher and we would receive the same as well. No doubt Lumi would spend it on food and toys ...

Use of the invitational link is subject to Napo's referral scheme terms and conditions found here.