NAPHIA Report: Perceptions of "Pet Insurance" among veterinarians and pet owners
Many of you might be familiar with NAPHIA, an organization of pet health insurance members which works collaboratively toward establishing and maintaining universal and professional standards for terminology, best practices, quality, and ethics in the pet health industry.
Over the last couple of years, NAPHIA has put a huge amount of resources into studying the perception of pet health insurance among pet owners and veterinarians. The study was published at the 2016 AVMA Conference. We wanted to share some of the findings with you, and encourage you to read the full study at your convenience.
Study details:
- 505 veterinarians, US & Canada
- 626 pet owners, US & Canada
To start, we’ll take a look at the importance of the veterinary recommendation.
Question to Veterinarians: What do you expect from pet health insurance?
Top 3 Answers:
- Produces increased compliance on recommendations by current clients
- Increases purchase of veterinary medical services
- Produces increased expenditures on pets by current clients
Trupanion is meeting these expectations, based on our own study of pet owners with and without Trupanion coverage, where we found:
- Insured clients visit their veterinarian more often than uninsured clients
- Insured clients spend twice as much as uninsured clients
Here is what NAPHIA found as the difference in the amount spent on vet bills between insured and uninsured pets:

Myth: Pet owners are not looking for a recommendation by their veterinarian, they want to do their own research and make their own decision.
Truth: The top two reasons pet owners enrolled in pet health insurance were 1) a recommendation by a veterinarian; and 2) a recommendation by the veterinary staff.
This is excellent information to share with veterinarians who feel strongly about letting the pet owner make their own decision. Pet owners respect their veterinarian and are looking for that trusted recommendation.
Myth: Veterinarians don’t want any part of pet health insurance.
Truth: 56% of veterinarians wish all their clients had pet health insurance!
The majority of veterinarians surveyed prefer their clients were insured.

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