Nationwide Continues Axing Pets As Petco Helps Sell New Policies
Petco Spox: Nationwide Pet Partnership With Petco is "Entirely Separate" From Nationwide Non-Renewals Actions
Last April 2024, TCR was first to report the news of Nationwide Pet Insurance embarking on an expansive culling spree of pet insurance policy holders, axing what former executive Kent Kruse told TCR he estimated would be at least 300,000 pet insurance policy holders by issuing non-renewals by the tens of thousands, well, nationwide.
After our story in April 2024, dozens of stories in local and national press followed, but, unfortunately, there was little if any fact-based business or policy reporting, not to discount coverage of pet owners and how the non-renewals have impacted people and pets. So, here we are.
On June 14, 2024, Nationwide announced that the company would no longer renew “approximately 100,000 policies beginning this Spring through the summer of 2025.” The summer of 2025 is nearly over, and Nationwide’s culling spree has continued. Nationwide CEO Kirt Walker did not respond to emails seeking comment, nor did spokesperson Karen Davis.
Petco Partnership in Nationwide Pet Purge
Even in the weeks and months following Nationwide’s less-than-popular announcement last June 2024 in which the company formally acknowledged a plan to kick pets off their insurance policies, one of the biggest brands in the industry, Petco, has stood by its partner and continued to help the company sell more pet insurance policies.
“To clarify, Nationwide’s decision to non-renew certain pet insurance policy holders earlier this year is entirely separate from the situation you highlighted below,” Petco spokeswoman Yvonne Tarrab wrote in an email to TCR last October when asked about a policy holder who says she lost her pet insurance coverage with Nationwide which she purchased through Petco:
Ms. Tarrab, the Petco spokeswoman, added: “In November 2023, we launched our new partnership with Nationwide to offer co-branded insurance on Petco.com. In May 2024, we began sunsetting our legacy (pre-Nationwide partnership) Petco Insurance policies in favor of the new Petco Nationwide Insurance offering. We notified policyholders that they should reach out to Nationwide if they wished to continue coverage with us. Courtney Dowd appears to have been a customer of a legacy insurance policy and the notes below were related to that transition, not to Nationwide’s non-renewals in June [2024]. Petco Insurance policies were not issued by Nationwide; therefore, their non-renewals have no impact on any Petco Insurance customers.”
Related:
Nationwide Now Axing Pet Insurance Policyholders Everywhere.