The Paris based pet insurance Dalma raised €15m, as pet tech investment continues to grow in Europe.
What does this have to do with employee benefits, you may ask?
Before the pandemic, Fortune Magazine already called pet insurance the “hottest employee benefit”. Millions of Americans adopted pets during the pandemic and this trend is observed worldwide.
Today in France more than 50% of households have a pet, a sharp increase linked to the effects of social isolation and teleworking due to COVID. According to IPSOS there were 20 million cats and dogs in 2021 in France and 68% of owners consider their pets as family members.
With an average annual medical cost of EUR 350 per pet and a high volatility at the beginning and at the end of their life this is a real budget for households and employees, however the pet insurance is still not popular in France with only 10% insured (versus 90% in Sweden and 50% in the UK). The monthly cost on an individual basis can still be considered as high (between 15 and 25 EUR) especially considering the lower expenses outside the critical periods of the beginning and end of life.
Is there no way to leverage the purchasing power of companies to give more affordable access to employees on a voluntary basis?
Businesses of all sizes in diverse industries in the US are adding pet health insurance to their benefits packages. End of 2020 the Society for Human Resource Management estimates that about 15% of US employers offer a pet insurance benefit to employees. Affordable plans are available across a broad spectrum of income levels, providing tremendous peace of mind to pet owners. We expect this number to significantly increase in 2021 and 2022 and beyond.
US employers leverage their flex platform to offer this access and we can expect other countries offering flex facilities such as the UK, Ireland or Spain to follow the same logic.
For other non flex countries such as France, we observe the emergence of new insurtech actors on the market who are expecting to offer digital platforms aiming at facilitating the management of broader employee benefits. Lots of work to totally eliminate the paperwork in France and pet insurance will certainly not be a priority, however we bet this will be soon on the to-do list.
What about you? Are you one of the 50% of households with a pet and would you take out insurance if it was more affordable with your employer?
