Insurance
Embracing innovation
How Embrace Pet Insurance changed the perception of its industry
By Matt McClellan
Smart Business Akron/Canton | September 2008
When Laura Bennett founded
Embrace Pet Insurance with
Alex Krooglik, she faced a significant challenge — changing the image of
pet insurance from a flighty waste of time
to a trusted financial product.
Bennett, the company’s CEO and
Krooglik, the vice president of marketing, worked together to create a fully
customizable policy that works for any
type of customer.
While customizable policies have been
available for auto insurance for a while,
adapting that model to the pet insurance
market hadn’t been done before. More customization creates a win-win situation for
the customer. Not only can customers pick
the particular policy features they want,
they can work backward using their budget to determine which features to pick.
Bennett has worked to make sure
Embrace’s product reflects what customers want, not what insurance companies think they need. Embrace allows customers to insure breed- or hereditary-specific conditions and other rarely covered conditions. Customers can even
choose to cover alternative and
complementary treatments, such
as acupuncture, hydrotherapy
and chiropractic treatments.
The problem with offering so
many custom plans is the consumers can get overwhelmed by
the sheer bevy of choices facing
them. To correct this problem,
Embrace pioneered the “slider”
— a visual display aid for helping
customers grasp the impact of a
customizable policy. The slider
shows the minimum and maximum premiums available and
allows the customer to use the
mouse to slide between them,
changing the product features to
correspond to the new price.
By using technology to enhance the
customer experience, Bennett has improved customer loyalty. Embrace
gives customers a positive claims experience by giving them a policy that covers what they expect, pays out
based on the veterinary bill,
and is done in a streamlined
and efficient manner.
Embrace also uses technology
to keep costs down. All of the
company’s processes are electronic and paperless. Policies are
issued instantly online and sent
out via e-mail. Billing is automated and occurs instantaneously
with potential issues flagged
before the policy is purchased.
Claims are faxed in electronically
and processed without printing
paper. The paperless environment reduces staff needs and
physical supplies.
HOW TO REACH: Embrace Pet Insurance, (440) 484-2260 or
www.embracepetinsurance.com
