Concerned about rectal prolapse

Hi there, I am messaging about my 18 month old rescue cat, who came to us from a multi-cat household with fleas, worms and diarrhoea. We took him to the vet a few days after getting him and were insured from the day of collecting him. However, I did not know we had taken out a policy in which you are not covered for the first 14 days (I completely missed this information during sign up). This has been pretty fatal for us, as the insurer is now saying they won't cover anything related to the diarrhoea picked up in his first vet visit — and, therefore, anything gastric. We had to take him back to the vet because we noticed blood in his poo, the diarrhoea wasn't clearing up and his bottom has been very red and sore. The vet did a stool sample check and discovered he had parasites (giardia) which we have since treated with an antibiotic. It has been a couple of weeks since we did this, and he has continued to have diarrhoea, occasional blood (though definitely less of this) and his bottom is still very raw. I don't know whether it will just take a while for everything to calm down or whether the issue is still unresolved after treatment. I am also concerned that the parasites have led to incomplete rectal prolapse based on what I have been reading online (he has been seen twice by the vet and neither time did they flag this as a concern). I am pretty upset and deflated because we took out a plan thinking we'd be covered from day dot (you never know what you're taking on - and we had been told he was completely well!) and because of a bit of fine print, we are now in a dangerous position with potentially spiralling vet bills. Any advice on how to ensure my cat isn't suffering but we don't bankrupt ourselves with treatment would be much appreciated. I have attached a picture of his bottom — if this looks like it could be a prolapse, I'd appreciate being told, as I understand we can't sit on something like this. Thank you in advance.

Hello - what a frustrating situation with the insurance!  Did you feel that the 2 week lag period was incorrectly discussed at sign up?   The are rules as to how insurance should be sold and if you feel that they may have been broken, this might be worth following up.  A lag time between signing new animals up and the cover starting is, however, quite common. A rectal prolapse is when the fresh pink tissue that is normally inside the rectum (the lining layer) pouches out of the anus.  The skin of the inner anal ring itself does look quite raw here - but I am undecided from here whether the tightness of the anus or simply wet faeces exiting the rectum are to blame.  A follow-up consultation might be helpful because your vet might want to be ensure that the antibiotic has worked / been given for long enough to treat the diarrhoea (they would have told you if this was he case), that the anus is as comfortable as they can make it and also not being licked, and that any other underlying contributing factors (worms, anal glands) are being addressed.  They may suggest using eg vaseline in order to protect the anal ring.