At PetSure, pets are at the heart of what we do.
When it comes to pet health, we understand that pet parents want to provide the best possible care for their furry friends, but the cost of treatment can be a significant and unexpected expense. Our products are designed to provide accessible options to help pet parents financially prepare for pet healthcare expenses, so they are better empowered to make decisions about treatment if their fur baby becomes sick or is injured unexpectedly.
Want to know more our product development and distribution approach?
Here’s an overview of our process:
- Identifying customer needs and expectations:
We actively listen to our customers, brand partners and the vet community to identify new, evolving and ongoing customer needs and expectations, so we can remain committed to product excellence. We consider the likely objectives, financial situation and needs of our customers to offer and provide appropriate coverage to them to help reduce the cost of unexpected veterinary treatment for their pet. The customer voice is heard through direct feedback channels including our customer service channels, net promoter score (NPS) tracking, social media communications, third party review sites, roundtables and more. - Designing solutions:
A team of over 400 passionate pet people, from veterinary professionals to actuaries who combine the customer feedback and insightsto devise actions such as product enhancements, new products and ways we can better our customers’ experiences, in collaboration with brand partners and the veterinary community. We also draw on our claims database, with over 20 years of pet health data trends and detailed risk assessments to inform our product design and approach. - Distribute our products:
Once we’ve designed the right solution, we distribute the product to our customers, in partnership with our trusted brand partners who have a shared passion for pets. We work closely with our brand partners to ensure their marketing, communication and practices align with the expected product outcomes, and the needs of our customers, through training and ongoing quality assurance and supervision. - Monitoring:
We regularly review our Target Market Determination (TMD) documents (which inform our sales and renewal journeys and outcomes) and monitor product performance, distribution arrangements, regulatory guidance, compliance incidents and trends or material changes that may indicate an issue with the product appropriateness for customer cohorts or individual customers. Where we identify a potential issue with the appropriateness of the product or its distribution, we reach out to customers prior to renewal to ensure the product is still right for them and/or conduct remediation as appropriate. Additionally, our product distributors are obligated to report to us on various aspects and are monitored and surveyed for quality assurance. This monitoring helps inform our product roadmap and our continuous product improvement cycle. - Product enhancements and modifications:
We understand the dynamic nature of the pet and veterinary world and we have a proven track record of product enrichments that are informed by extensive claims and industry data and input from key stakeholders including in-house vets and the broader veterinary community, customer feedback and brand partners. It’s a continuous improvement cycle that is ever evolving. From time to time, based on these inputs and monitoring, it may be necessary to close products that no longer meet performance guidelines, but we always endeavour to offer suitable product alternatives to ensure continuity of coverage and continued suitability for our customers.
Keen to know more?
As we move through those five steps, we are guided by our key product principles:
Value: Our products are crafted with value in mind. In 2023 alone, PetSure (across all PetSure issued and administered policies) reimbursed nearly a million dollars a day in relation to claims for veterinary treatments. Additionally, our comprehensive products (specified accidental injury and illness cover and optional extras where provided) have a claims acceptance rate of 90% or higher.**
User friendly experience: Our commitment to simplicity is reflected in our efforts to provide customers with swift and hassle-free access to our products. This includes features such as:
- Pet Portal: an online hub enabling customers to independently manage their insurance policy 24/7. This includes tasks like submitting and tracking claims, accessing important policy documents and updating customer details.
- eClaims service: This innovative service allows participating veterinarians to submit a pet insurance claim on the customer’s behalf. Apart from our GapOnly® claims service, with coverage at over 1,200 vets across Australia, PetSure’s eClaims service stands out as one of the fastest ways to claim.
- GapOnly® claims service: This service facilitates on the spot claim assessments at participating vet clinics. Customers only need to pay the gap (the difference between the vet’s invoice and the eligible claim benefit) when a claim is accepted.
- Streamlined claims handling: Our commitment to efficiency is accentuated by an impressive average claims processing time of 2 business days from receipt of all required claims information. For GapOnly® claims, the process is expedited further, with an average processing time of just 6 minutes.**
Offering a range of choices: We strive to ensure that pet insurance is accessible for all pet parents. We do this by providing products and options that will meet the likely objectives, diverse needs and budget considerations of customers in our target markets to help them reduce the costs of eligible veterinary expenses. For example, where excess is available, customers can reduce premiums by choosing a higher excess in return for higher out-of-pockets costs at claim time or choose a nil excess option with higher premium in return for a lower out-of-pocket cost at claim time.
Product education: We strive to be clear and transparent when we explain what our products do and don’t cover. This includes incorporating FAQs and real-life claims examples in our policy documents in addition to over 500 useful information and guides, available on our Knowledge hub. Additionally, our PetSure customers have the ability to check whether an upcoming procedure or treatment will be covered by completing a pre-approval (pre-authorisation) form, providing them with clarity regarding insurance coverage.
** Sourced from PetSure 2023 claims data.
Information accurate as at February 2024.