Pinnacle Insurance Limited · DRN-5894800

The complaint Mr H has complained that after his cat passed away, Pinnacle Insurance Limited didn’t tell him or contact him to pay him the death from illness or accident benefit under his pet policy, despite the fact it knew his cat had died. He also found the process to claim this benefit to be archaic. What happened Mr H’s cat passed away at the time he had complained to Pinnacle about the premium increase which was dealt with by a separate complaint. On reading through his policy in full, he noticed he could claim the purchase cost of his cat from Pinnacle, along with the benefit of the cremation costs. Obviously, Mr H told Pinnacle his cat had passed away at the time given the other claims he was making for vet costs and other issues. However he said Pinnacle never contacted him to pay the purchase price of his cat, which Mr H felt should have been automatic. When Mr H chased this with Pinnacle, it said he had to apply for it via a claim form which also had to be posted back and couldn’t be done online or emailed back which caused extra inconvenience at what was a difficult time. Mr H said he also got very upset in filling out the forms too. He explained that all the information required for this claim form was already on his pet profile and therefore in Pinnacle’s records. So he complained. Pinnacle said the benefit was appropriately highlighted in the policy documentation to include the Insurance Product Information Document (IPID) and the policy certificate. It also said it didn’t automatically process these claims because not all its customers chose to utilise this benefit. It did acknowledge there was some inconvenience in Mr H not being able to put this claim through on the portal. So for that inconvenience Pinnacle paid Mr H £50 compensation. Mr H wasn’t satisfied so he brought his complaint to us. He felt many other customers had most likely lost out too and he feels the practice is dishonest. The investigator didn’t think Pinnacle had to do anything more. Mr H disagreed so his complaint has been passed to me to decide. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Having done so, I’m not upholding this complaint. I appreciate Mr H will be disappointed so I’ll now explain why.

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First, I wish to offer my condolences to Mr S on the death of his cat. I can understand how upsetting this was for him along with all the insurance issues he needed to sort out afterwards. Secondly, as this service isn’t the regulator we can’t consider anything about any other consumer possibly losing out etc other than Mr H here. Also I have no remit or authority to tell any insurer what its processes should be either. That is a matter for the commercial discretion for each insurer to work out for themselves, so it’s not something this service can get involved in. I can see that this benefit is listed in Mr H’s insurance certificate on the second page. Along with that it’s listed in the IPID and is listed as Section 4 B ‘Your Insurance Cover’ in the policy document right under Section 4 A entitled ‘Veterinary Fees’. So I do think this benefit was properly highlighted in all the policy documents and not buried in any small print. Also in the policy under ‘making a claim’ as the investigator detailed in his view, so I won’t repeat it here, there is a process for making a claim for this benefit, cremation costs, finding your pet/theft/straying, hospital and boarding fees, holiday cancellation, overseas extension of vet cover, quarantine costs, loss of pet travel documents, emergency expenses abroad, all of which follow the same process, which is a different process to claiming vet costs or third party liability as both of those follow other processes. So I don’t think there is anything wrong with this and indeed I consider it is clearly set out in the section ‘making a claim.’ None of these other processes are automatic either as far as I can see, and I do agree with Pinnacle, that not every pet owner will make a claim claiming the cost of their pet after they pass away. So I don’t think there would be any reason to make this claim on its own such an automatic payout, as Mr H believes it should be. As against that, I do agree it was an inconvenience for Mr H to have to post the form back and that he couldn’t return it by email or through the portal. On that basis I consider it was fair of Pinnacle to acknowledge this and pay Mr H £50 compensation for this inconvenience too. I consider the amount of £50 to be fair here, as it’s in line with our approach to compensation more fully detailed on our website. Beyond that, I can’t see that there is anything further for Pinnacle to do here. My final decision So, whilst I do appreciate Mr H might be disappointed, it’s my final decision that I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr H to accept or reject my decision before 23 April 2026. Rona Doyle Ombudsman

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