Why Should Veterinarians Educate Clients on Pet Health Insurance?

TJ Houk, chief data officer of Data and Analytics at Trupanion, discusses the importance of insurance companies and veterinarians educating their clients on pet health insurance.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“One of the biggest challenges for clients buying pet health insurance is that they often don’t really understand the likelihood or the costs of a pet getting sick or injured. So, oftentimes, the client isn’t aware of the likelihood of a pet tearing a cruciate or eating something stupid or the many different things that do happen to young and old dogs or cats. So, with them not having that information, oftentimes they have a hard time making that decision on whether it makes sense. So, the important thing for the insurance companies, and also for veterinarians who would like to have their clients insured, because then the clients are going to be able to afford their treatments and they’re not going to have to have so many financial conversations, for veterinarians and clients who are interested in having those pets get insurance, it’s important for education from the insurance companies and from the veterinarians to those clients so that they can make an informed decision.

There is [also] a bit of concern from the standpoint of clients that what they’re paying for is something [where] there’s going to be some sort of ‘gotcha,’ and so, our company in particular, Trupanion, has really committed to having a simple, transparent, easy-to-read policy, and really trying to be there for pet owners and build relationships with veterinarians. If there are ‘gotchas,’ or something like that, that’s something that’s going to get back to the veterinarian and the veterinarian is going to stop recommending it and so by partnering with veterinarians and making sure that we do what we say, we make sure that the pet owners can have the confidence that when they buy the policy it’s going to be transparent and the things that they need covered are going to be covered.”