What does Sainsbury’s Bank offer?

Sainsbury’s was established more than 150 years ago and in 1997 became the first major supermarket to open a bank in the UK. Today, its offshoot, Sainsbury’s Bank, offers a range of financial products including home insurance, travel insurance and personal loans.

Sainsbury’s Bank offers pet insurance for cats, dogs, and rabbits, and its policies are underwritten by Pinnacle Insurance plc.

Pet owners can choose from lifetime policies, policies which pay out per condition (known as maximum benefit policies) and also time-limited cover – which covers conditions for up to 12 months.

Sainsbury’s Bank is one of a minority of insurers that will consider covering pre-existing medical conditions – whether and how they will be covered is determined when the pet’s medical history is declared at application.

• Find out more: how to find cheap pet insurance

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Does Sainsbury’s Bank offer the best pet insurance?

Members can log in, to read our scores and full policy analysis. If you’re not already a member, join Which? and get full access to these results and all our reviews.

To help you find the best pet insurance policy, Which? goes the extra mile to sort the best from the worst. Read more:

Lifetime policies

These pay out for ongoing issues your pet may have throughout its lifetime. There are two main types:

• Annual cover has a maximum overall limit that includes all conditions your pet may experience, which resets each year. With some policies, there may also be a lower maximum amount you can claim per year for any single condition.
• Per condition per year has a maximum limit for each condition you’d need to claim for, which resets each year.

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Non-lifetime policies

These policies exclude certain conditions after you hit a claims limit.

• Per condition or ‘max benefit’ pays a limited amount for each condition and the condition is excluded once the limit has been reached.
• Time-limit per condition has both a condition limit and a time limit of 12 months after you first claim for that condition before it is excluded.

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Accident only

Accident only policies pay out a fixed amount for each accidental injury to help pay for your pet’s treatment. It’s the cheapest type of pet insurance cover but excludes illnesses entirely.

We analyse and rate 31 elements of cat insurance policies and 34 elements of dog insurance policies – plus how much each pays in vet fees – to come up with the overall policy score.

Different policy elements are enhanced or reduced within the policy score, to reflect the relative importance of each. 

For example, the amount a policy pays for vet fees and how this money is made available counts for more in the score than the amount provided for holiday cancellation.

We’ve awarded Which? Best Buy status to some lifetime policies that have high policy scores, meet minimum criteria for the amounts they’ll pay out in vet fees each year, and that provide dental cover for both accidents and illnesses. 

We haven’t been able to evaluate all insurers offering Best Buy policies on their levels of customer service.

You can find out more about how Best Buys are selected in our guide to the Best and Worst pet insurance.

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Sainsbury’s Bank pet insurance policies: are they good or bad?

Our experts rated Sainsbury’s Bank’s policies on how well they covered particular areas.

Members can log in, to read our full policy analysis. If you’re not already a member, join Which? and get full access to these results and all our reviews.

How did customers rate Sainsbury’s Bank pet insurance?

We asked Sainsbury’s Bank customers how they feel about their pet insurance.

Members can log in, to read our full policy analysis. If you’re not already a member, join Which? and get full access to these results and all our reviews.

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How good is Sainsbury’s Bank at handling claims?

It’s all very well holding what looks like a great policy on paper, but will your insurer pay out in your hour of need?

The latest data from the Financial Conduct Authority shows that Pinnacle Insurance (the underwriter for Sainsbury’s Bank) paid 95-100% of claims made on its lifetime, per condition (maximum benefit) and time-limited policies between July and December 2021 – above the industry average in each case.

Some 0-5% of lifetime policyholders that claimed complained – around average. However, 5-10% of those claiming on per condition or time-limited policies complained, which was higher than average.