Does your practice need a pet insurance specialist?

The cost of veterinary care is one of the key stresses of practice life for everyone on the team. Although pet insurance may not be the right choice for everyone, studies show that clients with insurance are more likely to pursue treatment plans and get advanced care for their pets.

With more than two dozen pet insurance companies in North America, few veterinarians have the bandwidth to walk clients through all the options.

Enter: The pet insurance specialist. This is a designated team member who helps clients sort through insurance plans. And this could be a winning scenario for your clients, their pets, and your practice.

More than medicine

“A pet insurance specialist is one of those tools you can offer for superior customer service,” said Debbie Boone, BS, CVPM, a veterinary practice management consultant with more than two decades working with AAHA-accredited hospitals. Boone advocates a “hospitality forward” approach that builds relationships with clients. “People don’t fuss as much about price when you are really taking care of them,” she said.

Although veterinarians have long been skeptical about pet insurance, that perspective is shifting. More than 90% of veterinary professionals agreed that pet insurance leads to better care, based on a 2023 survey conducted by Pawlicy Advisor, an online tool that helps people evaluate pet insurance plans.

That positive outlook may have dimmed after Nationwide announced the abrupt non-renewal of more than 100,000 policies last year, and it’s true that the price of the premiums can be steep enough to be a barrier, but it hasn’t stopped many clients from asking about insurance.

Is it worth it for your practice?

 Going the extra mile pays off for everyone, said Harrison Stenson, the pet insurance specialist for Angell Animal Medical Center, a large veterinary facility in Boston with general practice veterinarians, specialists, and 24/7 emergency care.

Stenson became a full-time pet insurance specialist in 2023 to help hospital clients and pet owners from across the state. He finds that clients love the one-on-one advice, pets come in more often for medical care, and it increases hospital revenues.

Providing pet insurance expertise is part of the top-notch service that is foundational for the five-hospital Heart of Chelsea Veterinary group in New York City, said Jennifer Abatino, the group’s pet insurance specialist since 2015. She educates clients about how pet insurance works—which is more similar to property insurance than human health insurance— and offers recommendations based on the pet’s age, breed, and health concerns, the owner’s budget, her research about policies available in New York, and other clients’ experiences with various insurers. She helps file appeals, and is now busy enough to have two assistants to process claims.

“We see that what we are doing is working,” said Abatino, who started tracking data few years ago. Across all five hospitals, about 45% of their clients are insured, well above the U.S. average of about 4%, according to National Pet Health Insurance Association data. “Clients are able to come to the clinic more when their pets are sick; they’re able to get the care they need. And they do spend more.”

Surveys back up Abatino’s data:

An Embrace insurance survey found that:

• 91% believe that pet insurance enables them to provide better care for their pets, potentially extending their pets’ lives.
• 66% said that having pet insurance allowed them to get their pets the care they needed, that they otherwise might have had to decline due to cost.

A 2024 Experian survey of 1,279 U.S. adult consumers found:

• Over half (55%) of those with pet insurance spend an average of $100 or more monthly on their furry friends; that statistic is 24% for those without pet insurance.

A 2021 study funded by Nationwide pet insurance analyzed close to 10 million pets seen at more than 2,000 veterinary practices, and found that pet owners with their policies:

• Increased annual revenue per patient by 92% for insured dogs and 76% for cats vs. those without pet health insurance.
• Were 51% more likely to approve surgical treatment for their dog, with a 17% increase in spending. Insured cats were 20% more likely to receive surgical treatment, and owners spent 38% more on those procedures.

A specialist of your own

Pet insurance specialists aren’t just for big practices, according to Abatino, who also consults for other practices that are interested in having a specialist.

Her role started when the Heart of Chelsea “group” was just a single, standalone hospital. “I think it is beneficial for any practice to consider having someone on staff who is fluent in insurance,” she said. “You know there’s someone on your staff that’s already kind of doing that job anyway.”

A specialist role also gives hospital managers a way to advance people within the practice, said Boone. “No matter what the size of the practice, everybody wants to improve themselves at work or feel their career is not stuck,” she said.

There are no specific credentials for becoming a pet insurance specialist. Stenson developed his expertise through talking to insurance companies and reading the fine print on the policies. Although he is also licensed in Massachusetts as a property and casualty insurance producer, and also as an insurance advisor, he emphasized that he did that to improve his own understanding. Like Abatino, he does not sell policies and his hospital has no preferred partnerships with any insurance companies. “We are agnostic,” he said about his recommendations.

Learning the ropes vs. teaching the team

Finding the time to train someone about the complexities of insurance is the biggest obstacle for getting a go-to person in her 3+ doctor general practice, said Alexis Franzen, hospital manager for Santa Cruz Veterinary Hospital in coastal Central California. But even if you can’t justify a specialist on your staff, there are options that can be quite helpful, like creating a one-page handout or sharing links to an unbiased YouTube explainer, said Kimberly Alt, a writer and pet insurance specialist for the Canine Journal.

Whether or not there’s a place for a dedicated pet insurance specialist in your practice, by increasing awareness and educating pet owners, you can differentiate your hospital and create a more supportive healthcare experience for clients, pets, and your team.

Further reading:

A positive shift in perception of pet insurance

Team talking points for pet insurance

Hospitality in healthcare: How it can transform the veterinary experience

Factors that influence small animal veterinarians’ opinions and actions regarding cost of care and effects of economic limitations on patient care and outcome and professional career satisfaction and burnout—Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association

Ethical conflict and moral distress in veterinary practice: A survey of North American veterinarians—Journal of veterinary internal medicine

Frequency, Stressfulness and Type of Ethically Challenging Situations Encountered by Veterinary Team Members During the COVID-19 Pandemic—Frontiers in veterinary science, 8, 647108. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.647108

Is Pet Health Insurance Able to Improve Veterinary Care? Why Pet Health Insurance for Dogs and Cats Has Limits: An Ethical Consideration on Pet Health Insurance—Animals : an open access journal from MDPI

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Disclaimer: Trends™ content is meant to inform, educate, and inspire by providing an array of diverse viewpoints. Any content published should not be viewed as an official stance, position, or endorsement by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) or its Board of Directors.