Dogs aren’t just property, they’re family. Welcome Odie Pet Insurance

As pets are increasingly viewed as family members, more pet parents are buying pet insurance, but it’s still a small piece of the pie. Only 3% of U.S. pet owners have pet insurance. Odie Pet Insurance is hoping to change the way people view pet insurance and their goal is to increase the pet insurance saturation to 20%.

Miles and Zabrina’s story is a personal one. When they got their dogs—Luke, a now 12-year-old Vizla, and Summer, a now 13-year-old Golden Retriever—they were underwhelmed by the pet insurance solutions. They wanted the best for their dogs, and with a background in the insurance industry, they knew they could do better than what other pet insurance companies provided. We sat down with Miles and Zabrina Thorson, co-founders of Odie, to hear how they’re reshaping pet insurance distribution and coverage to make it an easy choice for pet parents to prioritize their financial health and their pet’s health.

Traditionally, pet insurance has very limited coverage and may only offer emergency coverage. How are you changing this?

Zabrina: We have two core differentiators in coverage that we don’t see with other pet insurance companies: those are televet service and dental care.

Pet parents often have something concerning occur like their dog keeps licking its paw, but they don’t want to go to the emergency room and can’t get a regular vet visit for weeks. The televet service acts as a good triage service and helps pet parents receive support on a day-to-day basis. Our televets also offer nutrition plans, behavioral training, and day-to-day preventative care advice to make the pet owner feel like they’re giving their pet extra love.

Another thing we do differently is our dental coverage. Our wellness plans cover dental work and some teeth cleaning. If a dental disease comes on suddenly and the pet owner has been diligent with teeth cleaning and dental checks, we cover that. It may not seem like a big deal until you’re faced with it.

Pet insurance should be offered by all brands that customers trust. How do you help pet brands offer insurance?

Miles: Many pet insurance companies are focused on direct-to-consumer marketing which has a high cost of acquisition. Those channels are getting more expensive as everyone’s competing for the same keywords. They’re selling an expensive product starting in the $100 per month range, and many customers are getting priced out or have a mental barrier to these price points. We offer low barrier-to-entry pet insurance plans, and we have a premium product for a higher-earning subset of clients, say through our employee benefit partnerships.

Zabrina: Our distribution model relies heavily on our partners and B2B marketplace. The “powered by Odie” embedded service is most common with partners. We work with companies that want to offer pet insurance, through an embedded service model since it’s a regulated space. In these instances, we’re the backend for insurance administration, customer support, and claim support. For larger enterprise partnerships that already have an audience in the insurance marketplace, we create a white-label solution for them.

What are embedded white-label services, and how should pet brands decide how they partner with Odie?

Miles: We have a collaborative conversation with these partners. When you peel back the layers on insurance capabilities, experience managing customer service, and policy administration, many partners don’t have the technology platform to allow those interactions and service points. In that scenario, we direct them toward a “powered by” solution where the partner controls the sales and branding to make it native to their existing user experience and messaging, Odie manages the post-policy purchase, and we communicate directly with the insured party. The insured party and partner know the experienced vet techs on the customer service team and claims team are there to support them.

Zabrina: From an affiliate standpoint, we’re very picky about the everyday pet service providers we partner with. If they sell a particular food or supplement, we try them out beforehand and deeply research what is actually in the product. We have an incredible team member with an animal health and science PhD who ensures the product fits a pet’s needs and aligns with our brand.

How will pet insurance rates become more sophisticated in the future?

Miles: As we expand more into the pet services ecosystem, more companies are partnering with us because they know that a client base that’s willing to spend on pet insurance is a higher ticket clientele for their own services and products. In some cases, our insurance can directly reimburse for some products these partners are promoting.

In 2024, we’re looking at ways we can reimburse for more day-to-day services, such as pet daycares, dog walking, and others that promote pet health. We know weight and lack of exercise cause potentially chronic issues like diabetes and joint issues, so we want to encourage healthy behaviors. These partnerships rely on data-backed research to understand how they affect the insurance rate and the insurance outcome.

Zabrina: An exciting new partner, EpiPaws, tests older pets to determine their biological age versus their health and everyday age. With this information, we’ll be able to see how food, exercise, certain medications, and lifestyle are affecting the expected lifespan of the pet. We can use that information to either discount the insurance rate for pets that are doing things to contribute to positive pet health or offer incentives to use products and services that positively impact pet health.

Pet insurance disappoints when it comes to pre-existing conditions and lack of direct pay to vets. How are you solving this?

Miles: There are two modes of distributing pet insurance: through veterinarians making referrals or direct-to-consumer. Unfortunately, with vet offices, people tend to wait until there’s a health event to get insurance, and by then, it’s probably too late for the condition to be covered. And it’s the same for the direct-to-consumer channels. You can appear at the top search result for “pet insurance” in Google, but people often seek out pet insurance after a triggering health event.

We’re focused on proactive distribution to put the product in front of people before a health event arises. With employee benefits, for example, people are making insurance-based decisions during open enrollment already, so it removes the timing factor. It’s similar for bundling pet insurance with home or auto insurance. People are already in the insurance mindset, rather than waiting for a pet health event.

Zabrina: Pet insurance is not like human health insurance. The insurance industry looks at pets as property. You buy insurance for your house, car, and any other belongings before an accident happens. That’s why pre-existing conditions aren’t covered. There’s no current way or legal regulation to make sure people bring in their pets for annual exams and preventative care exams.

There aren’t in-network pre-negotiated rates, but over time, they’ll be built as the industry starts to grow. We need a cultural shift in the way we look at pet insurance for pre-existing conditions to be thought about and rated differently.

Miles: When pet owners have to put a $10,000 expense on their credit card, they simply have to wait to get reimbursed. We encourage our customers to submit invoices before large procedures, so we can pay the vet directly and reduce the bills. That’s an education curve we’re working on.

Pet insurance will look more like human insurance in the future. Where do you see pet insurance headed in the next 10 years?

Miles: We’re seeing a humanization of pets, and therefore, of the insurance product and pet services. We’re going to see more in-network versus out-of-network structures and pre-negotiated levels of care. As more innovations come into the pet care space, for example, dialysis and respirators, the cost of care will continue to increase. The need for insurance is becoming more solidified.

Zabrina: We need to educate people to get insurance when pets are puppies and kittens to eliminate the confusion and stress around pre-existing condition coverage. At the end of the day, pets are an elective part of the family. It would be great for pet parents to be able to get pet coverage with their own health care and to provide a credit or deduction on taxes to push forward pet insurance.