Embrace Pet Insurance Blog

Running Theme with our Embraced pet parents

Perhaps we shouldn't order the milk-bone flavored paper anymore? Within the last 2 weeks, we received these 2 emails:

Hello Chris,
Sorry for the delay. I had every intention on signing that paperwork and sending it back, except I really believe that my dog ate it. I know I know, that excuse doesn't even fly with grade schoolers, but I found little bits of it and half of an envelope. Would it be posible for you to remail it or email it to me again. Thanks.
george

And...

Hello!
Thank you so much for checking on the check. :)
We DID receive it but then my husband left it on the table and, this is true, the dog chewed it up. The puppy decided that since it was for his vet. services, it was his check to destroy!
Sigh...
Would it be possible to tear the check up completely and be reissued a new one or perhaps to do the instructions below and setup our account for direct deposit?
Thanks again...you guys have been so wonderful!!!

Dog ate your Embrace paperwork anyone?

if you have a cat...

A Tuesday smile for you.

Rob, one of the commenters over at Invisible Voices, posted this video to make us laugh and laugh I did. Reminds me of my poor husband who likes to sleep in and our cat Barnes putting his nose on John's arm to get him up.

Enjoy!

Pet Protect on hold for the moment

Pet Protect, our pet insurance friends down in Naples Florida, have pawsed (sorry couldn't resist) their new business operations for the moment as they transition to a new program that will keep costs low for their customers. Believe it or not, they hadn't raised their pet insurance rates for 9 years!

Rhona and the gang are working feverishly to get the new program up and running. But in the meantime, Rhona tells me that they have another new program that is going to be a first.

First what, I can't tell you as I don't know but I'm looking forward to it. About time we had something new to report on.

Update: It looks like Pet Protect is launching a prescription drug card for pets. The site is not live yet so I can't compare how this benefit compares to our Drugs and Dental extension of coverage yet. I'll update you when it goes live.

Update 2: Check out the Pet Realty Network - Rhona's newest endeavor

What is an actuary?

Someone once told me that an actuary is a "pension engineer", which frightened the bejesus out of me as I was contemplating doing the actuarial science degree at the time (I did a pure mathematics one instead - much more exciting!)

So, if you are wondering what on earth an actuary is, here's a much better description from Society of Actuaries' What is an Actuary:

The future is full of uncertainty. Some of the events that can happen are undesirable. "Risk" is the possibility that an undesirable event will occur. Actuaries are experts in:

• evaluating the likelihood of future events,
• designing creative ways to reduce the likelihood of undesirable events,
• decreasing the impact of undesirable events that do occur.

The impact of undesirable events can be both emotional and financial. Reducing the likelihood of these events helps relieve emotional pain. But some events, such as death, cannot be totally avoided. So, reducing their financial impact is very important. Actuaries are the leading professionals in finding ways to manage risk. It takes a combination of strong analytical skills, business knowledge and understanding of human behavior to design and manage programs that control risk.

Wikipedia also has a good Actuary entry too.

As you can see, this description is extremely relevent for being a pet insurance actuary because there's really no other insurance that I know of that people get so emotional about. What do you think?

BTW, another tidbit about being an actuary - the actuarial profession has consistently been rated as one of the top five jobs in the United States according to Jobs Rated Almanac. To learn more about this, click here.

And finally, there are many actuary jokes since actuaries are stereotyped as being more boring than accountants (so we must be bad!) Here's one of my favorites to keep you amused:

What is the difference between an introverted actuary and an extroverted actuary? An introverted actuary stares at his own feet during a conversation, while an extroverted one stares at the other person's feet.

I left the male reference in the joke because there are still more men than women in the profession. Check out this site for more groaners.

Don't get catty with me!

I haven't used the word catty for a long time but someone in our office referred to one of their previous co-workers as catty.

No, we don't have people like that at Embrace Pet Insurance, we are all purrfect :)

Dog days of summer

Well, it's the dog days of summer, or so every media article these days says. Check these out:

• USA Today: Dog days of summer getting on players' nerves about how the recent heat has affected baseball players (it also had a definition of dog days - see below)
• Leader Times: Dog days of summer about dog training in the heat
• Philadelphia.com: Joe Sixpack: the dark lager for these dog days of summer about different styles of beer for this time of year
• Richmond Times Dispatch: Dog days of summer leave time for to-do lists about business owners catching up on their to-do lists because summer is so so slow (which small business did the reporter go to? Not mine!)
• and many many more...

So what are the dog days?

"The dog days, July 3-Aug. 11, reflect the 40-day period when Sirius, the "Dog Star," rises and sets with the sun, according to J. Kelly Beatty, editor of Night Sky magazine. The ancient Egyptians believed Sirius, the brightest star in the northern hemisphere, magnified the heat radiated from the sun."

So there, no more dog days until next year. How sad :)

Let me out!

When a dog's gotta go, a dog's gotta go, and if you aren't paying her the attention she deserves, she might just let you know she needs to go outside RIGHT NOW by scratching the door or barking and whining at you until you pay attention.

Well, I was sniffing around the web (ha ha - must put that in my pet puns list) and I came across solution to that - Poochie-Bells! You hang the bells on the door handle and your poochie rings them when she needs to go out.

There are a couple of cool things on this website. First, there's a video of Poochie-Bells in action, and there's also a competition to win some Poochie-Bells if you can find all five blue doors on the site. The instructions are on the home page at the bottom.

There, you've found one already! (on their home page, not this one, silly!)

Dog-eared

I was sorting through my boxes of books the other day and some of them were beginning to look a little "dog-eared" after our move last year. Sometimes I feel a little dog-eared after a day of pet insurance too.

I know, it's a little "lame" (another pun intended) but even our puns are looking a little dog-eared too.

Dog thong

What do you think - an April Fool's joke? :)

Dogone Dog Fart Neutralizing Thong

This dog bag is definitely a hoax and a good one too.

We are doggedly pursuing our goal

Ha ha - I like this one a lot as it often pops into the Embrace vernacular since we are so dogged about getting Embrace set up.

Who would have thought that three years after graduating from Wharton, we would only just be selling policies? I'm not sure what I would have though it I had known that from that start. Sometimes, it's just best not to know, isn't it?!!!