Regulators hit Petplan/Fetch by the Dodo, Walmart with cease and desists, fines
Neither Walmart nor Petplan/Fetch by the Dodo press officers or lawyers have responded to TCR’s requests for comment. More to […]
Neither Walmart nor Petplan/Fetch by the Dodo press officers or lawyers have responded to TCR’s requests for comment. More to […]
Seattle-based pet insurer Trupanion spent Labor Day weekend licking its wounds after publishing a series of posts on its social media platforms followed by what many members have written off as a non-apology apology. The result: Many pet owners – purebred dog lovers and breeders in particular – were barking mad.
Last month, The Canine Review reported exclusively on a leading pet insurance carrier’s filing documents which declared veterinary professionals seeking […]
“The rising cost of care will make it only more difficult for the average pet owner to budget for the unexpected, and veterinarians still need to raise their prices…We want to empower veterinarians to offer and practice the best medicine, removing the emotional toll of heart-wrenching decisions forced by financial constraints…”
Last Friday, we reported that pet health insurer Petplan — now rebranded as “Fetch by the Dodo” to reflect its new partnership with The Dodo, the animal-loving viral video blog – had started rolling out an exclusion in its policy that slashes coverage options for veterinary professionals. Now we can report that the insurer explained the move by declaring veterinary professionals a “moral hazard/fraud [risk]” in the cover letter of the filing we reported last week.
Why Would Petplan Slash Coverage For Veterinary Professionals?
Are veterinary professionals not the people a pet insurance provider would want on its good side for client referrals? Actuary data shows that veterinary professionals tend to adopt “what we consider ‘lemons’ as their companions,” explained Margi Tooth, the President of Trupanion, a Petplan competitor which does not have the same exclusion. “What this inevitably means,” she added, “is that their pets have a higher rate of utilization that the average pet owner. There’s no conspiracy here – it’s a profession that can’t face putting a pet to sleep that could be saved – so when an owner walks in with a sick pet that they can’t afford to treat, they’re often adopted by the team in the hospital. These folks are heroes on many levels.”
On December 7, 2021, Trupanion, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRUP), the “medical insurance for pets” provider announced a partnership with Chewy, Inc. (NYSE: […]
After six-months of sidelining the Pet Insurance Model Law aimed at protecting consumers – and following what has been an almost three-year drafting process— the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Pet Insurance Working Group will meet again on June 7 to consider proposed changes to the model law. NAIC Consumer Representative Birny Birnbaum, who is also the Executive Director of the Center for Economic Justice, called the proposed changes to the draft “stunning” in an email to TCR last week.
The policy says if condition X occurs during the 365-day pre-existing condition waiting period, it is not eligible. Only “Treatment that occurs AFTER [emphasis TCR’s] the three hundred and sixty five day waiting period” is eligible. Thus, even PPI’s own fine print even seems to indicate that it would not cover conditions that its salespeople told TCR in three different conversations with different representatives it would cover.
And here’s the kicker: PPI’s leaders refused repeated requests to discuss any of our questions over more than two weeks of attempts to get help clarifying the policy language.