This week, I spent an afternoon at AKC headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina visiting with Steve Popovich (President and CEO) and Patrice Bayer (Operations Manager) at PetPartners.
Although PetPartners isn't large compared to the top two or three companies in the industry, it is growing and profitable.
Steve seems to be slowing changing the culture at the company and surrounding himself with individuals who are capable of moving the company forward and delivering good customer service to its policyholders.
The company has an excellent relationship with the AKC and they help introduce pet owners to pet insurance when they register their pets by offering a free 60-day Pet Partner's policy.
Just in the last year or two, they have rolled out new policies that separated out Wellness Care from their base policy, and instead offer it as an optional rider. This made their base policy more affordable because pet owners can now customize their policy - choosing a per-incident/annual maximum and deductible that makes sense for them and their budget. The copay is 20%. Be sure and listen to the podcast interview I did with Steve about their new policies.
I've corresponded with Patrice via email several times about their policies and it was good to finally meet her. She is a former veterinary technician and has been with PetPartners several years now - working her way up to her present position.
I actually took with me one of their sample policies to go over with her and we talked a lot about various scenarios that veterinarians see in practice and how their claims department handles those conditions when the pet owner files a claim. She repeated several times in our conversation that when there is a grey area about whether a condition is covered, they go ahead and pay the claim. I believe she is a gifted communicator about pet insurance to pet owners and veterinarians alike explaining concepts in a way that is easy to understand - even for me. :-)
So, I believe that Steve and the leadership at PetPartners is committed to changing their policies whenever necessary to reflect the way the industry is moving and also what pet owners - especially their policyholders want.
