A Look At Pet Insurance Companies
Pet insurance companies have been around since 1982 when Veterinary Pet Insurance first opened its doors to sell the first ever pet insurance policy to Lassie. Ever since then there have been a small group of pet insurance companies to come and go and maybe a timeline of the previous pet insurance companies would help us to understand how the industry got started and where it may be headed today.
Veterinary Pet Insurance
The very first of the pet insurance companies started in 1982 by Dr. Jack Stephens and a group of about 700 other veterinarians nationwide. VPI was started to try and help prevent people from destroying their pets because they could not afford medical care for the animals. The group is still in business today and is one of the largest pet insurance companies in the world.
Pet Protect
Started by former Lloyds Of London broker Rhona Sutter in 1997. Pet Protect was one of the few pet insurance companies to stay in business for more than a year but finally closed their doors in 2006.
The Hartville Group
Launched in 1997 by investment banker Russell Smith III and initially marketed under the Petshealth Care name, the Hartville Group has been known to use famous cartoon cats like Garfield as their mascot. The Hartville Group is still in business.
Now For The Rest
The above mentioned companies were considered pioneers in the pet health insurance business and are often credited with giving the industry any chance at all of surviving today. Some of the other companies that tried to sell pet insurance but failed are Frontier Insurance (closed in 1988), VMS (closed in 1988), Medipet (closed in 1994), Premier Pet Insurance (closed in 2003), Midwest Pet Insurance (closed in 2003), and BluePaws Pet Insurance (closed in 2001).
The future of pet insurance companies is unclear as many larger insurance underwriters dropped out of helping to offer coverage after the attacks of 9/11 when the insurance industry became very unstable. But companies are out there trying to keep the concept alive and some hope to have great success in the coming years. There are only about a half million pets insured with pet insurance companies to date and when you consider that there are over 150 millions dogs and cats in the United States alone you begin to realize the amazing potential for future growth in this industry. If the companies can figure out a way to market insurance to pet owners so that the pet owners feel the importance of it then they just may make it long term.
