I have 5 dogs, and paid Directline £250 a month for them, one of my dogs developed cherry eye (a pretty straight forward claim one would think)...

Direct line then enquired as to the age of my bulldog that developed cherry eye and I told them she was still a pup of approx 5 months old, our vets got confused and gave Direct Line the date of birth of another one of my dogs, all of which were insured by Direct Line, they then said they would not pay out due to the fact that the dog I was looking cover for was way older than the age I declared on the policy.

Due to this I directed them to contact the vet to clarify this and the vet admitted they gave the wrong dogs date of birth..

Finally we were moving forward, then direct line asked me what vet my bulldog was registered to before purchase, I explained that I was not certain as the breeder would have registered the dog not me and I could not find the vaccination sheet, they instantly jumped on this subject stating that if we could not provide this they would not cover a claim for cherry eye.

After much chasing around I got the breeder to contact them and inform them of the vet she was registered to, again we were now moving in the right direction...

Finally I had a date set for my bulldog to have the procedure and then direct line requested to look into my other 4 dogs with our vet??

Puzzled by this but not having anything to hide I said of course you can check them out with the vet... I then gave them permission to do this...

Direct line then came back to me stating that one of our dogs had pups, I informed them that yes our little King Charles had pups to our male King Charles the only male dog in the house and that they knew that as I rung them asking if they covered cesarian procedures should it be required and they told me they did not cover that.

I also explained that this was an accident and as soon as we found out it had happened (about 2 weeks before due date) we put our male King Charles straight in for castration as this was something we did not want to happen as we thought we were being so careful to prevent this...

Direct line once again asked to look into this and check if I did in fact get our male dog castrated, knowing I was being completely open and transparent I agreed and this was confirmed by the vet...

They then asked what I was doing with the pups? again I did not see the link between the pups of my female King Charles and the claim of my Bulldogs cherry eye.

I explained that I was selling them at the going rate to ensure they were going to good homes and not to any old person, I also informed them of the advert we posted for this...

Direct line then came back to me and informed me that they found the advert and believed that I was using my dogs for financial gain and cancelled all of my policies....

I am still contesting this and it seems from the word go they did not want to cover or pay out and they really scrapped the bottom of the barrel to come up with a reason not to pay...

As a result I have found it difficult to get insurance as I have to declare that I've had a policy cancelled and recently one of my dogs has gone for an emergency procedure leaving me with no other option but to take out a loan to pay the vet bills...

Thank you so much Direct Line your company is a joke and you rob people of their hard earned cash and good intentions for their animals...

I am disgusted beyond belief !!