Today a journalist asked me why she'd never heard of pet insurance until recently. It's an interesting question. There are a couple of things at work I think.
First, she probably heard of pet insurance from a friend, thought it was interesting, and then happened to notice other references to pet insurance afterwards. She might not have noticed the other references if her friend hadn't happen to talk about it.
But having said that, I think references to pet insurance have been increasing over time. It's hard to give it precise numbers but to me it seems like my scans of the media over the last 5 years, both printed and online, show an increasing interest in pet insurance and what it's all about.
For example, I helped an NBC researcher for the Today Show gather facts on pet insurance for the spot that Jill Rappaport did on her dog, Jack, and his osteosarcoma (bone cancer). The segment, shown on Thursday March 29 2007, was a touching commentary on how Jack and Jill both got through his illness together (streaming video here). You'd be hard pressed to have a dry eye by the end of it, it was so heartwarming.
The segment itself didn't include anything about pet insurance but the live chit chat afterwards did when Jill mentioned she would be getting pet insurance for her other dogs as soon as she could. Apparently the network was flooded with comments about the story, dog cancer, and pet insurance. Jill had a nice follow up here.
Embrace Pet Insurance also benefited from another news piece las Saturday when Cleveland's daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer, ran an article entitled "Pet Insurer Starts Site for Quotes, Comparison" about our website launch. We also got a bump in interest after the story ran.
I definitely think you'll be seeing more of pet insurance and Embrace in the news going forward.
