Pets Best vs. Healthy Paws

Pets Best vs. Healthy Paws: Coverage

The key difference between Healthy Paws and Pets Best is that Healthy Paws sells just one pet insurance policy and Pets Best provides several customizable options that fall into three categories: accident-only, accident and illness, and wellness. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect from each type of plan:

• Accident-only coverage reimburses injuries your pet sustains if hurt by something in their environment. For example, if they ingest a foreign object or are attacked by another animal, both of these would be covered by an accident-only policy. Healthy Paws doesn’t offer this type of plan, but Pets Best does make one option available.
• Accident and illness policies are the most common type of pet insurance. In addition to coverage for injuries, this type of plan reimburses the treatment of illnesses and diseases from bladder infections to cancer. Healthy Paws’ single pet insurance policy falls under this category; Pets Best offers three accident and illness options.
• Wellness coverage pays for your pet’s routine care, including vaccinations, preventive screenings, and sometimes procedures like spay or neuter surgery. These benefits usually are offered in the form of a policy rider, which pet parents can add to an accident and illness policy for an extra monthly fee. Pets Best gives two routine care options while Healthy Paws doesn’t offer any.

See the table below for a breakdown of the specific treatments covered by each provider’s plans.

*Available only with higher-tier plans

Pets Best vs. Healthy Paws: Enrollment Process

As with most pet insurance carriers, both Pets Best and Healthy Paws let you sign up for coverage online. Each provider’s website includes an instant quote tool pet owners can use to compare rates and purchase a policy in a matter of minutes.

Since Pets Best’s policies are more customizable, its quote tool is more complex. You may need to spend a bit more time playing around with different plans, riders, and coverage options to find the right combination. With Healthy Paws, all you need to do is choose a reimbursement level and deductible.

As a bonus, Pets Best lets you choose from four payment plans: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual. The advantage of making fewer payments, aside from pure convenience, is that you’ll get a discount for being ahead on your premiums. Pet owners can save up to $24 per year by switching from a monthly to an annual payment plan.

While Healthy Paws policies are faster to purchase, they do take longer to go into effect. Injury and illness benefits don’t start until 15 days after you begin paying premiums. Pets Best customers need to wait only three days for injury coverage; illnesses are eligible for reimbursement after 14 days.

One final item for consideration is the date of your pet’s last veterinary exam. Healthy Paws requires all pet parents to show proof that their pet has been examined in the past 12 months (30 days if your pet is 6 or older). If you can’t provide these records, your pet will need a checkup within 15 days to prevent your policy from being canceled. Pets Best doesn’t have this requirement.

Pets Best vs. Healthy Paws: Claim Filing

Both Pets Best and Healthy Paws provide convenient digital claim-filing tools. With each company, you can submit expenses for reimbursement through a mobile app or by uploading documentation online.

Healthy Paws processes most claims within 10 days. Once a claim has been processed it can take an additional 24 business hours to be issued your reimbursement. Pets Best doesn’t make any promises, so it’s a good idea to anticipate a lengthier wait just in case; customer reviews also allude to this issue. The company does advise pet parents to sign up for direct deposit if getting reimbursed is urgent. Funds usually become available within two days via electronic transfer, much shorter than the five to seven days it can take for a paper check to arrive.

Pets Best vs. Healthy Paws: Reviews

At a glance, Healthy Paws outperforms Pets Best across most review platforms. Clients consistently state that they have trouble getting ahold of the company to ask for updates on their claim status.

Healthy Paws also does better in the financial stability realm. Policies are underwritten by Chubb, which receives the topmost rating of A++ from AM Best. With Pets Best, it’s harder to get a clear reading. One of the company’s underwriters, American Pet Insurance Company, isn’t rated by AM Best. The other, Independence American Insurance Company, has an A- financial stability rating.

Pets Best vs. Healthy Paws: Costs

Since Pets Best makes exponentially more coverage options available, the company also offers plans at a wider price range than Healthy Paws does.

The cheapest plans from Pets Best start at $9 per month for a dog and $6 for a cat. With Healthy Paws, you’ll need to budget a bare minimum of $20 if you have a dog and $15 for a cat. However, this price difference also extends to the higher end of the scale.

For a more accurate comparison, we asked each provider for a quote to insure a 2-year-old dog with unlimited annual benefits, a $250 deductible, and an 80% reimbursement. Pets Best returned a monthly price of $63, while Healthy Paws was slightly cheaper at $57.42.

In the table below, we’ve laid out an estimated price range for the policy types available from each provider. Keep in mind that your actual quote will depend on your pet’s age and breed, your geographic location, and the type of coverage you choose.

*This table does not include the price of wellness riders and an accident-only plan.

Final Verdict

Both Pets Best and Healthy Paws provide excellent insurance for your furry friends. However, due to the wider array of coverage and prices, Pets Best is our top choice. It makes pet insurance more accessible, even with a slightly more complicated enrollment process, and the coverage begins very quickly. If reviews and an easy sign-up process are more important to you, then Healthy Paws will be the better option.

Methodology

We evaluated Pets Best and Healthy Paws using our standardized scoring method for pet insurance companies. Our quantitative analysis assigns each provider a score in categories like price, coverage options, limits, reputation, and more. We also looked at the history of each company as well as its financial strength based on third-party data. Using this data allows our side-by-side comparison to remain objective.