It’s National Pet Day—a day to celebrate our furry, scaly, and feathered family members. And just like any other member of our family, pets deserve the best care possible. That's why, today, we want to shine a spotlight on an essential aspect of responsible pet ownership—pet insurance. If you run a business that caters to pet owners, there are three big reasons you should be offering pet insurance to your customers. Pet insurance is crucial for several reasons. First and foremost, it gives your customers financial protection for unexpected veterinary expenses. Just like humans, pets can experience accidents, injuries, and illnesses that require medical attention, and the costs associated with veterinary care can add up quickly. In 2021 alone, Americans spent over $32B on vet care and related products, and unexpected emergency vet care averages between $800 and $1500 per visit.  At the same time, in 2022, half of American adults reported having $5000 or less in their savings account and one-third had less than $1000. 33% of American pets need emergency care each year, but up to 75% of American pets are still uninsured. That means that, if a pet needs unexpected vet care, a sizable percentage of Americans might struggle to afford it. Even for well-off pet owners, an emergency vet trip can be a nasty financial surprise.  Pet insurance can help to offset these expenses, ensuring that your customers can provide the necessary medical care for their pets without breaking the bank.  Whether you’re a pet-related business or an insurtech catering to consumers, offering pet insurance is a big opportunity to build new or additional recurring revenue streams.  The pet insurance industry is huge, with over 130 million pets estimated in the U.S. However, despite the large number of pets, most pet owners don’t have insurance, which creates a significant opportunity for pet related companies to get in on this market. The popularity of pet insurance is quickly increasing: gross written premiums for pet insurance in the US have grown by double-digit percentages every year since 2016, and in 2020, the total US volume hit almost $2 billion.  The primary opportunity for your business to benefit from pet insurance is through the revenue of regular premiums paid by pet owners. In exchange for financial protection from unexpected medical expenses for their pets, your customers will pay you a regular monthly premium. These regular payments provide a steady, new source of revenue to your company while deepening your customer relationships. That leads to the next major incentive: customer retention and experience. A major perk of embedded pet insurance is that it markets to your existing customers. Rather than investing more time and money into new audience acquisition costs, embedded insurance builds a deeper relationship with customers already in your funnel. You’ve already done the hard work of building a positive, trusting relationship with your customers, and this adds a new, beneficial point of engagement with them.  Embedded insurance creates lifetime customers out of formerly one-time buyers. If you have customers who occasionally buy dog toys or cat food from your website, you can easily offer them pet insurance at checkout. Insurance is a very “sticky” product with an average 84% customer retention rate. Now, instead of just occasionally visiting your website to grab the latest toy, their engagement with your brand will increase because they will be interacting with you every month to make their premium payments. It provides an opportunity for your business to demonstrate even greater service and care that will increase customers’ brand loyalty. By offering your customers the protection they need for their pets and their wallets, you can create deeper customer relationships and a stronger brand identity while increasing your short and long-term revenue. If you want to learn more about growing your revenue with embedded pet insurance through Boost, contact us, or dive into building your insurance program with Boost Launchpad.

With companion pets living in 70% of U.S. households, pet insurance is a huge revenue growth opportunity for consumer-focused insurtechs - or anyone who sells pet-related products or services.  But if you’re not a financial services business, how do you get started? Let’s start with the basics.  Pet insurance, sometimes called pet health insurance, is an insurance policy to cover medical or other expenses related to a pet. Like human health insurance, pet insurance usually includes a deductible, and not every treatment is covered by every policy. Signing up for pet health insurance is similar to other forms of insurance. The process includes the steps below: In reality, the process is even simpler than this. Modern insurance offerings tend to use algorithmic underwriting to make underwriting decisions in real-time. With the right insurer, a pet owner might complete the first three steps in minutes and then rest easy knowing that their pet is protected. Pet health insurance can be used in many different cases. Below are the most common uses from emergencies to unexpected events. So what does that look like in real life? Here’s an example scenario of how pet health insurance helps consumers protect their furry family members (and their wallets). Katie adopted a rescue dog named Roscoe, and she immediately bought an accident & illness policy to cover any unexpected costs of care. That turned out to be a wise decision because Roscoe is an escape artist, and after getting out of the yard one day, he ran into the street and was struck by a car. Katie rushed him to the animal hospital, where they ran his blood work and took X-rays of both his spine and his obviously broken front leg. Luckily, his spine was clear, but Roscoe needed surgery to ensure his leg would heal soundly. Roscoe spent the night at the animal hospital, and he ended up needing a follow-up surgery. The vet also prescribed some anti-inflammatory medicine to help with pain and swelling from the accident and the subsequent surgery as well as an anti-anxiety medication to keep Roscoe calm during his recovery. With multiple surgeries, a hospital stay, and lots of tests, caring for Roscoe after the accident quickly becomes very expensive. Fortunately, since Katie had the foresight to buy pet health insurance, the majority of the costs will be covered:  Only 39% of Americans have enough savings to pay for a $1,000 emergency expense. The bills for Roscoe’s accident were 3.5 times that amount – a sum that would have been difficult for Katie to absorb. But thanks to her advance planning, Katie only has to pay for 2% of the total bill out of pocket. Everything else is covered by her pet insurance accident & illness policy. With vet bills doubling over the last ten years, it’s not surprising that more and more Americans are considering pet health insurance to ensure they can afford care for their pets. This makes offering embedded pet insurance a great opportunity for pet-related brands to create new recurring revenue streams and deepen the relationships they have with their customers. American households contain more pets than ever, so the time is right to add pet insurance to your product portfolio. What’s the easiest way to get started? Find an expert embedded insurance partner like Boost that can help you navigate the complexities of the insurance part of the equation, while you manage your business and your customer relationships. Download The 2022 Guide to Growing Your Revenue with Embedded Pet Insurance, and learn everything you need to know to get started selling pet health insurance. Or, if you have questions and would like to speak to one of our pet insurance experts, you can contact us to learn more.

It’s a great time to get into the pet insurance market. In fact, more than 70% of American households now own at least one pet, and with the rising cost of vet care, those households are more and more likely to insure their pets’ health. For businesses that serve pet owners, offering embedded insurance is a significant opportunity to grow their revenue and deepen relationships with their customers.  At the same time, for most pet-related companies, insurance is a whole new line of business outside their core expertise. The opportunity is there, but it can be hard to know how to get started in the pet insurance market. Partnering with Boost can make it easy to get underway! Download The 2022 Guide to Growing Your Revenue with Embedded Pet Insurance, and learn everything you need to know to get your business started with pet health insurance: Learn how pet health insurance works and what coverages are most commonly available, and explore the use cases that make pet insurance valuable to your customers. Learn which types of businesses have the best opportunity for offering white-label pet insurance, along with what it takes to actually get started (spoiler: less time than you’d think). Learn how to reach your customers with your new insurance offering, using the knowledge you already have about their preferences and buying habits for their pets. The 2022 Guide to Growing Your Revenue with Embedded Pet Insurance is free to download HERE. And as always, if you have any questions about our pet health insurance product or anything else, our team is here to help.