the times | Saturday December 4 2021 63Money
flation-beating accounts have not been
that hard to find over the past few years,
because inflation has been low.
The best-paying fixed-rate accounts
have beaten inflation over the past five
years, according to the website Savings
Champion.
But the latest inflation figure was
4.2 per cent over the 12 months to
October — the biggest rise in the cost of
living since 2011. Supply chain prob-
lems, goods shortages and higherPet protection
6 Self-insuring is putting money
aside for potential vet bills, instead
of paying an insurer a premium that
you will never get back.
6 The average lifetime insurance
policy for a dog costs £420 a year.
Treating a dog with a very severe
stomach bug costs about £8,000 —
19 years’ worth of premiums.
6 The average insurance claim for
treatment at a vet is £817.
6 Dog owners can be sued if their
pet causes an accident. You can get
liability-only insurance to cover this
for £25 a year if you join the animal
welfare charity Dogs Trust. It covers
you up to £1 million.
6 Self-insuring can save you money
if you have a young,
healthy pet. You
could save more
once your dog or cat
hits about nine, when
insurance premiums
become more
expensive, but the
risk of your pet
needing treatment is
much higher, so it’s
more risky. You can
get a lifetime policy
without time-limited
exclusions for about
£264 a year for a cat
and £420 for a dog.bated as pet owners head back to the
office. This may be particularly acute in
pets that were born into lockdown.”
Stressed cats and dogs can be aggres-
sive towards other animals or humans
and may show signs of compulsive
behaviour such as excessive grooming.
Feast plans to self-insure Marble,
putting aside emergency money fortreatment rather than paying an insur-
ance company every month. This can
end up being more expensive if your pet
becomes very unwell, but will generally
save you money when they are young
and healthy. Older pets can be very
expensive or even impossible to insure.
Pet insurance payouts are at an all-
time high, and the cost of treating petsI
t was only when Sean Feast began
working from home that he
realised why his cat was bitey and
hard to control.
Marble, a small four-year-old
tabby with a white belly and paws, was
being bullied by the neighbour’s Bengal
cat, which would sometimes come in
through the catflap.
Marble had always been aggressive
towards humans; she tended to scratch
or bite if you tried to pick her up.
“You did have to warn people
because you’d be stroking her one
minute and get a swipe the next,” said
Feast, 54, an advertising director from
Sarratt in Hertfordshire.
But because he and his wife, Elaine,
have been home more in the pandemic,
they have been able to shoo the Bengal
interloper away and Marble has been
less aggressive.
“Her behaviour has noticeably
improved in the past 20 months. She’s
been better for us being around and
being in the home. Marble will go out-
side now if we’re at home, like we are
her lookouts,” Feast said. “Now she
bites less and is much easier to control.”
Now that the couple are returning
to more normal working patterns —
Elaine is working on the Covid vaccine
programme — they are worried that
Marble will be back to her old ways.
They have installed a camera and asked
their sons, who are in their twenties, to
come in and check on her.
And they are not alone: pet owners
across the country are dealing with the
effect of lockdowns on their pets, with
many claiming on insurance for behav-
iour-related issues such as anxiety.
The specialist insurer Scratch &
Patch said it has had a threefold in-
crease in dog behaviour claims this year
compared with 2019 and it has had its
first cat owners claiming for behaviour
issues. The insurer has paid out £2,967
for treating dog behaviour and £165 forcat behaviour this year and said that
dog owners had claimed £5,326 last
year for treating dog anxiety.
Ian Rayland from Scratch & Patch
said: “Increases in pet claims for
anxiety and behavioural treatment
over the pandemic can be for a variety
of reasons, but separation anxiety is a
known cause and this has been exacer-Taxman shuts phone lines
to tackle pile of Covid post
T
ax office staff are closing their
phone lines for three days this
month to deal with a backlog of
post built up during the pandemic.
HM Revenue & Customs closed its
VAT and corporation tax lines yester-
day and they will be shut again for the
next two Fridays. Call centre staff will
go on to mail-opening duty instead.
Anyone who sent a letter to the
taxman last Thursday to ask for a self-
assessment return can expect a reply by
June 23, according to HMRC.
Last month The Sunday Times report-
ed huge customer service problems at
the tax office, with backlogs of post and
long call waiting times. Taxpayers have
been waiting months for refunds.
The taxman said that it has been able
to dedicate more resources to customer
services since the closure of Covid
support schemes at the end of Septem-
ber. It aims to be back to pre-pandemic
service levels by April.
Tim Stovold from the accountancy
firm Moore Kingston Smith said that
lines might have to close again in therun-up to self-assessment deadline day
at the end of January if HMRC was
serious about meeting this target.
“HMRC is expecting fewer people
will be calling their business tax help-
lines in the three Fridays leading up to
Christmas because of the Christmas
party season,” Stovold said.
“This should give the tax office the
scope to reallocate people to deal with a
year’s backlog of post and will be wel-
come news for businesses that have
waited months for replies to letters.”
Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s head of cus-
tomer services, said: “By closing two of
our helplines on Fridays in December
we will be able to focus more resources
on working through our post and get all
our customer services back on track by
the end of the financial year.
“I understand the frustrations of cus-
tomers and agents who are waiting for
us to get to their individual inquiry; I’m
sorry that we can’t get to everyone
more quickly, and I thank them for
bearing with us.”
David ByersThe savers seeing the upside of inflation
S
urging inflation is usually bad news
for savers, but for about 443,000
customers of National Savings &
Investments (NS&I) it is a bonus.
Holders of index-linked savings cer-
tificates, which have not been sold for
ten years, are guaranteed interest rates
that match any rise in inflation plus
0.01 per cent. In a world of pitiful inter-
est rates, they are guaranteed a return
that beats the rise in the cost of living.
Holders of the certificates (which
were available from the Treasury-
backed bank for two, three or five years
on deposits of between £100 and
£15,000) get the chance to renew them
when they mature. Any interest is tax-
free.
In May 2019 NS&I decided to change
the measure of inflation it used in its
calculations from the retail price index
(RPI), which includes housing costs, to
the consumer prices index (CPI), which
does not. The Office for National Sta-
tistics has also switched to using CPI,
which is considered to be more accu-
rate, and which is generally lower, so
bad news for savers.
But while these accounts might seem
unusual in today’s savings market, in-energy costs have pushed up prices.
Inflation is not expected to return to
the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target
before 2025.
The best two-year fixed rate savings
bond pays 1.63 per cent and the best
three-year rate is 1.87 per cent — both
from United Trust Bank, a property
lender based in London. It also has the
best five-year fixed rate bond, which
pays 2.06 per cent.
Two-year bonds haven’t paid 2 per
cent since December 2019, and three-
year bonds have been below 2 per cent
since February 2020.
Anna Bowes from the website Sav-
ings Champion said that index-linked
savings certificates were particularly
valuable for taxpayers who had used up
their £1,000 annual savings allowance
— the amount of interest you can earn
on your savings tax-free outside an Isa.
Additional rate taxpayers don’t get the
allowance.
“These accounts have not been on
sale to new customers for ten years, so
another thing to remember is that if you
cash them in, it’s not possible to replace
them,” Bowes said.
George NixonSource: Savings Champion, ONSSavings v inflation
2016 17 18 19 20 2101234CPI inflation rate 5%
Top five-year bond
Top three-year bond
Top two-year bondWhy treating anxious cats and dogs
is pushing up the price of pet cover
The cost of treatments has never been
higher thanks to the pandemic, so is it worth
taking out insurance, asks Kate Palmer
has doubled over the past decade. The
average claim cost insurers £817 in
2020, compared with £486 in 2010,
according to the Association of British
Insurers (ABI).
Pet insurers processed £799 million
in claims in 2020, most of which went
on vet treatment. Some £148 million
was spent on cats and £598 million on
dogs, with other animals covered
including rabbits, indoor birds and
hamsters. The number of cat owners
making claims went up 10 per cent.
Treatment for behavioural issues can
be covered by pet insurance, as long as
it is recommended by a qualified vet
and carried out by a vet or a member of
a specialist trade body such as the
Association of Pet Behaviour Coun-
sellors, the Canine and Feline Behav-iour Association or a certified clinical
animal behaviourist.
Joe Ahern from the ABI said: “There
is no NHS for animals, so if you’ve not
got a pet policy in place, you risk having
to foot veterinary bills out of your own
pocket. These can often be in the
thousands of pounds and vet treatment
is only getting more expensive.”
The most expensive pet claim is for
gastroenteritis, caused by bacteria or
parasites, which can cost £8,000 for
acute cases. Road traffic accidents cost
up to £7,825, while mast cell tumours
cost up to £7,537.
Once your pet has a medical condi-
tion, it becomes far more difficult to
insure. Most standard policies will rule
out pre-existing conditions, meaning
owners may be stuck with their existing
insurer for their pet’s lifetime.
Each insurer has its own definition of
pre-existing, but it generally means
something your pet showed signs of
before you took out the cover, such as
obesity, recurring joint pain for an
injury or congenital diseases.ndsaidthat btdSean Feast only noticed Marble’s problems
when he started working from home£799m
of pet insurance claims
made in 2020