I am with tescos and have been for many years. In March this year Red was diagnosed with leukemia. I rung Tesco and I was told that because I had not renewed the existing policy (I had gone online bought the better policy and got the new customer discount) that I was still within the 14 day exclusion period and as such would not be able to claim, i just hung up As you can imagine I was devastated.
I dont know what made me do it but a few hours later I had calmed a little (and got a bit angry). I rung them again and I got through to a really nice girl who looked into it, clearly saw that I had in fact been a customer of theres for a very long time and was told that my claim would be assessed as any other would!!! yay triumph!! I have spoken to this lady sinceand have been very impressed with her helpfullness and empathy to our situation.
The actual claim itself has gone very smooth. They send a load of forms and the vet does them in his own time and they send my a cheque for each form sent. We were very lucky that the vet actually stopped billing us after the first £500 and just waited until the insurance cheques started coming through. When I rung them after the first cheque was went they told me that on average they are processing decisions/claims about 3 weeks after recieving the form. Which IMO is an acceptable amount of time.

With regards to who I will go with when I get my next dog; I will be getting a golden retriever puppy (health tested and everything) BUT I m still very aware that the cost of something as serious as HD could be very very high so the £4000 per year lifetime cover Tesco offers as its higher cover IMO will not be enough for her.
Sorry for such a long post, just wanted to let you know of my personal experience. Please do let me know who you decide to go with in the end.

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