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Insure
you don’t get ‘ticked off’
READERS
ARE advised to be wary of reading the small print on Kennel Club
puppy transfer documentation or they may unwittingly elect to
take out pet insurance on the puppy in question.
A breeder contacted the OUR DOGS office this week to relate how
she was surprised to receive notification of a direct debit to
her credit card in respect of insurance for a puppy she had since
exported.
The breeder (name withheld on request) had jointly bred a litter
with another breeder, so the resultant puppies could not bear
her affix. However, as she had bred both parents of the litter,
she was entitled to apply for a name change and transfer in respect
of one of the puppies that she wished to export, bearing her affix.
The breeder duly sent in the necessary documentation to change
the puppy’s name and to transfer the puppy into her sole
name before exporting it to Denmark. The application for export
was arranged at the same time.
The breeder sold the puppy as arranged, but was taken aback a
couple of weeks later when she received documentation from the
KC’s Healthcare department informing her that the puppy had
six weeks’ free insurance and, from a given date, the sum
of £17 per month would be debited from her credit card account
to pay the premium.
"I couldn’t believe it," the breeder told OUR DOGS.
"I’d supplied my credit card information when I was
arranging the transfer of the puppy into my sole name, I didn’t
expect this information to be taken and used to extract money
from me for an insurance policy I didn’t request."
After contacting the KC’s Healthcare department to complain,
the breeder received a call back from the KC’s Customer Services
department explaining how the error had arisen.
Ridiculous
"Basically,
I was told that I hadn’t ticked a box on the paperwork
saying that I did NOT want to take out insurance," the
breeder said. "This, to me, is ridiculous. Surely it’s
more a case of ticking a box if I WANT insurance. It shouldn’t
be down to me to say that I don’t. It shouldn’t be
assumed. The lady who called me told me that if I’d paid
the transfer by cheque, they’d not have had my credit card
details and would simply have sent me a reminder when the six
week’s free insurance ended. I’d have ignored that
then, simply because I wouldn’t want it."
The KC’s Press Office told OUR DOGS that the ‘assumption’
of the pet insurance continuing beyond the free six week period
was known in marketing terms as an inertia response, whereby
if a customer did not indicate otherwise and had provided credit
card details, it would be assumed that pet insurance would be
required.
A KC spokesman said: "Our advice to anyone sending in this
documentation and providing their financial details is simply
this: always check the small print. If somebody receives notification
of a policy they do not wish to take up, they simply need to
contact Kennel Club Insurance directly and the policy will not
be activated."
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