We took a stand for the first time at the 2008 British Veterinary Nurse Congress held in Kettering. We wanted to tell the veterinary world about Animal Friends now that we handle our own claims from our Wiltshire HQ as vet practices are starting to see our branded claim forms coming through.

We were delighted at the reception we received – and it wasn’t just because we were giving away free chocolates! We ran a little competition with the first prize being a luxury spa day for two and over 200 vet nurses entered. A very happy Lisa from Pet Doctors was the lucky winner and she and a friend will now be spending a day at one of the UK’s top 10 spas!

Our competition gave us the chance to talk to all of those who entered and they were delighted to hear about our full lifetime cover and were amazed that we were turning claims around in 48 hours – a UK record it seems! Of course they were also delighted that we are a not-for-profit company devoting all net profits to worldwide animal welfare charities. Quite a few of the nurses volunteered to join the neutering programme we fund in Greece so it was great that we were able to help there too.

Although a lot of vet practices are affiliated to Pet Plan those that aren’t were keen to have our leaflets in their surgeries but even those who are obliged to offer Pet Plan’s products were interested to hear that Animal Friends will take on pets at any age – something Pet Plan don’t do – so they said they would bear us in mind when older pets needed insuring.

So all in all it was a fantastic event for Animal Friends – we’ll be booking a bigger stand for next year and we will be on show to the veterinary world again in April 2009 at the British Small Animal Veterinary Association Congress in Birmingham. We’ll be offering free chocolates again so maybe see some of you there!

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