Rare parrot was really a chicken in disguise-3/7/99-BY TONY THOMPSON
THEY are a new breed of petty criminals. Animal lovers across the country are defrauding insurance companies of huge sums by pretending their exotic pets have died or run away.
Now pet keepers are bracing themselves for a backlash from animal insurance companies who are demanding post-mortem examinations on pets following a series of bizarre cases.
One of the most celebrated involved a rare parrot insured for pounds 15,000 which died unexpectedly. Suspicious of the circumstances of the death, Golden Valley insurance company arranged for the remains to be sent to a vet for an autopsy. The 'remains' turned out to be the innards of a frozen chicken. The parrot was later found alive and well.
The UK's pet insurance market is worth more than pounds 110 million and has been growing at 20 per cent per year for the past five years. It has still more potential because around 90 per cent of the UK's 14 million cats and dogs remain uninsured.
The problem of fraud was thought to be confined to the more valuable animals such as exotic birds, reptiles and horses. Sharron O'Gorman of Golden Valley insurance, which specialises in birds, has come across dozens of cases.
'Someone will wake up and find their bird has flown away so they try to make a claim saying it has been stolen. Once they realise we are going to investigate rather than just paying out straight away, they usually drop the claim.'
In one case, an insurance company discovered that a valuable macaw for which the owner was making a claim was actually dead at the time the policy was taken out. Another case involved a pounds 5,000 falcon that had been stolen. It turned up at the house of a friend of the policy holder. A DNA test proved it was the same bird.
In the racing world, stable owners with cashflow problems have arranged for certain horses to have accidents. 'Anything that has happened in a Dick Francis novel has happened for real,' says Richard Barrett of PetPlan, the leading pet insurance company, which has 500,000 policy holders and last year paid out claims worth pounds 40m. 'We insure horses up to a value of pounds 250,000. There is obviously a temptation there.'
Fraud involving standard domestic pets is also becoming more widespread. Last week Jill Allen of Saxilby, Lincolnshire, who bred Cavalier King Charles spaniels and Yorkshire terriers, admitted in Nottingham Crown Court 23 counts of forgery, using false instruments and obtaining and attempting to obtain money by deception.
Allen, 52, forged death certificates from vets which she then used to collect insurance payments. To boost their value, she had also claimed the dogs had registered Kennel Club pedigrees.
As well as claiming for the cost of the animal itself, there is a suspicion that some owners are falsifying bills to claim for veterinary treatment. Treatment for the most common injury - a broken leg - can cost around pounds 1,000 for a medium-sized dog, while more serious conditions such as heart disease or cancer can require a course of treatment totalling pounds 5,000.
The Allen case is expected to lead animal insurance companies to tighten their procedures in a bid to clamp down on the problem. Exotic Direct, which deals exclusively with expensive and unusual animals from iguanas and boa constrictors to squirrel monkeys and gorillas, and has around 5,000 policy holders, already insists on a full post-mortem examination being carried out - at the owner's expense - before it will pay mortality claims. For theft claims, the company employs its own investigator who will visit the scene of the alleged crime. Other companies are expected to follow suit.
Insurance companies are also expected to begin taking action against allegations of 'overtreatment' where insured pets with terminal diseases are given worthless but expensive treatment in their last few days. In one recent case, a cat with kidney failure was taken to a vet and, in the 21 days before it died, received pounds 2,900 worth of treatment.
Copyright 1999 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Observer
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