Pet Protect Pet Insurance

Pet Protect offers quite cheap pet insurance if you’re looking for a good deal, with your choice of two Lifetime cover options: Lifelong Plus with £4,000 of vet cover and Lifelong Extra with £6,000 of vet cover. If you want access to a vetfone or Death Due to Illness cover you may want to consider Agria or PetPlan instead!

Compare quotes from Pet Protect against 25 providers by clicking the blue “Get Quotes” button below to see how much you can save:

n this review we try to clarify some features of Pet Protect’s pet insurance plans, but be sure to read the policy wording before you sign up. Choosing the best policy for you and your dogs or cats will depend on your individual situation.

Pet Protect Pet Insurance Review

Pet Protect offers some of the Best Value Dog and Cat Insurance, with their two Lifetime dog and cat insurance policies: Lifeline Plus and Lifeline Extra, with £4,000 and £6,000 of cover, respectively, as well as a maximum benefit policy with £3,000 of cover per condition.

Pet Protect helps keep prices lower by having pet owners contribute towards vet bills with both a fixed excess and a variable excess, which starts at 5% and typically increases with pet age up to 25%. While some other insurers employ the same method, the variable excess with Pet Protect could be higher by around 5 to 10% for most of your pet’s life than, say, with Agria Pet Insurance.

Prices may increase if you claim. When it comes to renewal, your new premium could reflect your claims history over the past year. In an older version of their Terms & Conditions, under the Policy Renewal section, it stated that premiums may increase according to claims history (as well as pet’s age and your location), however we don’t see this language in the current document.

Time Limit to Claim: All claims must be submitted within 6 months of the treatment start date. For ongoing treatment, interim claims can be submitted—this is a benefit over some other insurers who require you to submit a claim for each treatment.

Excess: The excess on a Pet Protect policy is composed of a fixed £ amount excess and a % copay. When you claim for a new condition, you pay the fixed £ excess and then you pay a percentage of any remaining vet bills for that condition. Each year, you’ll need to pay the fixed £ excess again for each condition for which you are still claiming.

The excess will increase as your pet ages, but the amount is different for dogs vs cats and also depending on the policy.

Pet Protect Insurance for Older Pets: Pet Protect only offers new policies to younger pets. Older dogs aged 8+ and cats aged 10+ are not eligible for new Pet Protect insurance policies. Once your dog or cat is insured with Pet Protect, however, you can continue to renew regardless of age. (But you should expect your premium and excess to increase with age.) Specified breeds of dogs are further limited and must be aged 5 or less in order to get a new policy. There are dozens of breeds of the “specified breeds” list, including: Bulldogs, Basset Hounds, Dobermans, Mastiffs, Sheepdogs, etc.

Inner Limits: Within the vet fee limits of your policy, you’ll notice that some conditions are subject to a maximum reimbursement amount. In some cases, these limits may not cover your vet fees:

Referral or Emergency Vet Cover: If your pet is referred to a specialist vet (e.g., cardiology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, etc.) then you MUST obtain pre-authorization from Pet Protect prior to your appointment. Without authorization your claim won’t be covered. There is no “network”—you are free to visit the referral vet of your (and your regular vet’s) choice unlike, say Tesco Pet Insurance. House call charges are covered so long as the vet confirms it would be life threatening to move your pet.

Pet Protect Key Facts

• Holiday cancellation, unwell, travel, prescription food, dental cover available on lifetime plans
• Euthanasia cover
• 6 months to make claims
• No Death Due to Illness Cover
• Premium may increase according to claims history
• Vetfone to call with queries
• Upper age limit on new policies (not available to dogs 6+ or 8+, breed dependent, or cats 10+)
• Excess increases with age

Pet Protect Quote Comparison

To try to get an idea of how pet insurance premiums may change as your pet ages, we quoted Lifetime Pet Protect policies for various dog ages. This is not necessarily an indication of how your premiums may rise if you renew a Pet Protect policy.

How Do Pet Protect’s Prices Vary with Age?

Also remember that the excess increases at certain age milestones as well.

Pet Protect Notable Features

Types of Pet Protect Dog and Cat Insurance Policies

Pet Protect offers two levels of Lifetime pet insurance cover, which provide cover for both accidents and illnesses over the course of your pet’s life, and a maximum benefit plan that covers up to a fixed amount per condition. There is no time limit on treatment cover, so long as you keep up with payments and keep the policy active. Ongoing and recurring conditions are reimbursable, so long as the policy remains in force.

For more information on pet insurance cover in general, please see our article on What Does Pet Insurance Cover in the UK.

Condition Care

Pet Protect’s Condition Care plan is a “maximum benefit” type of policy, so it covers a maximum amount for each new accident or illness up to the benefit limit of £3,000. There is no time limit—for example, a dog or cat with recurring ear infections could keep claiming over the years (while policy is still in force, of course) for ear infections and Pet Protect would pay up until the £3,000 limit, then they wouldn’t pay any more for ear infections. (But they would pay for other, different conditions as each condition has the £3,000 limit.)

This plan doesn’t include a lot of extras like holiday cover, or certain treatments like CT/MRI scans or cruciate ligament rupture. So be sure to have a look through what’s covered in the table below to see if it is suitable for you or not.

Lifelong Plus

Pet Protect’s Lifelong Plus insurance plan provides up to £4,000 of Lifetime vet cover per year. Each year when you renew, the limits reset.

Lifelong Extra

Pet Protect’s Lifelong Extra insurance plan provides up to £6,000 of Lifetime vet cover per year. Each year when you renew, the limits reset. Additionally, cover limits for Recovery Costs, Kennel/Cattery Fees, Holiday Cancellation, Loss by Theft/Straying, Death due to Accident and Travel Cover are higher with the Extra plan than with the Plus plan, as you can see in the table below.