he then moved into pet insurance, taking over a small agency, pet protect, in 1984; he grew it substantially and completed a deal with the uk kennel club so that the club would receive a percentage of each policy in return for officially endorsing pet protect. according to "the telegraph", he sold pet protect to ge investments in 1997, although other sources state it was ge capital. spurling's "who's who" entry states he remained with pet protect until 2001. ge moved away from the kennel club relationship aspect of pet protect's business model, and the kennel club invited spurling to launch a new insurance company. in 2002, he founded petpartners ltd, of which he was chairman and chief executive until 2009. spurling also launched petpartners inc. for the us market and has been its chairman since 2004.