Would you like pet health insurance for a benefit?
By Gina Spadafori
January 15, 2008
And here after we just had a post and comments about pet-health insurance, the Associated Press is reporting that employers (even those outside of California, ha!) are offering four-legged family members some critical coverage:
At a time when employers are scaling back on costly health benefits, pet insurance is gaining popularity as an employee benefit.
Veterinary Pet Insurance, the nation’s largest pet insurer, saw its corporate accounts balloon from 15 to 1,600 in the past six years. About 15 percent of Veterinary Pet Insurance’s policies, or about 50,000, now come from its corporate accounts.
[...]
Only a tiny fraction of employees typically sign up for the benefit — usually less than 5 percent, according to Veterinary Pet Insurance. But with big names like Comcast Corp., Home Depot, the Walt Disney Co. and Sprint offering the benefit, policies add up.
“It’s really taking a very holistic view of employees,” said Patty Friedman, a senior health care strategy consultant for Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a personnel consulting firm. “It falls under the whole umbrella of protecting your financial well-being for you. (Employers) want to make things easy so you have one less thing to worry about.”
Here’s the rest of the article. If you were looking for a job would pet insurance give you a good feeling about your prospective employer? All things being equal, would it tip the scale if you had to choose one job or another?
My experience is that Pet Insurance, like Homeowners insurance or Auto insurance is usually a 100% employee paid benefit. You do get the convenience of auto-deduction, but that’s generally about it.
Comment by 2CatMom — January 15, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
Sooner or later employers have to realize that pets are an integral part of the family, especially with so many of the younger adult generation opting to stay single.
Comment by Lynn — January 15, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
The requirements for insurance would be an issue for me. For example, if I feed raw and do not vaccinate, is my pet insurable? If my cat is in her 20’s, is she insurable?
Usually not. So it wouldn’t make a difference to me either way.
I could see where it would be of use to some folks, though.
Comment by Mikken — January 15, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
That’s an interesting point. I have my critters on the 3 year vaccination protocol. Would that affect insurability?
Comment by The OTHER Pat — January 15, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
My husband had it offered by his job, and 2CatMom is spot on — it was 100% employee-paid. It also would not insure our oldest pets, had so many exclusions and restrictions I wasn’t sure what the heck it actually covered for the younger ones, and cost so much that when we ran the figures based on our actual costs for five years (including the last years of a very old cat who underwent radiotherapy for HT and had cardivascular disease) the insurance offered no actual benefit. Well, save that it spread the cost out over the years, but heck, we can do that with a savings account and do.
So, on the whole, I think: great concept, lousy execution.
Comment by Eucritta — January 15, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
doubtful it would sway my decision as to taking a job or not, or feeling better about an employer, especially if i were paying for it! don’t get me wrong, i’m glad that they are offering and i think it shows recognition of pets, which is nice. what’s even nicer is working somewhere that i don’t spend way too many hours, can predict my hours and such so i can spend time at home with my pets ;) i’ve had a few jobs where it would have been impossible to have a dog (that i actually got to spend time with!) funny thing is, they are prob the type of companies that would offer it. (Entertainment/Etc)
i also see this as just another way for an insurance company to make $$. they are just trying to expand their market (nothing against employers!) the ‘pet market’ is a growing field just like the natural/organic field. they are looking as to where we may be spending our dollars and trends show pets and organics are 2 good markets and growing rapidly.
who me jaded?! lol!~
i do find it fascinating that employers are starting to offer this at a time when there’s such a problem with human health insurance.
Comment by straybaby — January 16, 2008 @ 1:41 am
While I don’t have insurance on my pets….and likely wouldn’t pay for it — I have to say that having the option of group pet insurance at the office would be something I would be impressed with with a company….if for no other reason they had recognized the trends of what is important in people’s lives and provided benefits accordingly. This would almost certainly be a sign that they took an interest in their employee’s lives in other areas also.
Comment by Brent — January 16, 2008 @ 8:56 am
I would love to have an employer that offers it but with 6 cats ranging in age from 14 to 7 months (we tend to take in strays) and 2 dogs it’s just to expensive. 1 of our dogs has seizures so he can’t be covered, and the others are just too old and have pre-existing medical conditions. It just ends up being cheaper for me to pay for things out of pocket than have insurance. The payments I would make monthly for insurance can be used for the ones that can’t get coverage but could benefit from the insurance. But I really think it’s great for employers to offer it, I would be proud to work for a company that does.
Comment by Lena — January 16, 2008 @ 10:33 am
I guess the CNN writer must be reading Gina’s column:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING.....index.html
Comment by Lynn — January 17, 2008 @ 8:09 pm