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
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.
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 :)
Well, it's the dog days of summer, or so every media article these days says. Check these out:
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 :)
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!)
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.
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.
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?!!!
Again, this one needs little explanation, we all have our pet projects. Mine, of course, is the Embrace Pet Insurance blog. Alex's is trawling the web for information on anything - you'd be amazed what he comes up with. Not much escapes Alex's eye.
We have other pet projects that come and go, whether it be raising money or pursuing marketing alliances. We feed and nurture these projects until they reach the end of their lifespan one way or another and then move on. There's no lack of variety around here.
My parents' cat Churchill's pet project is fitting into small spaces (see picture). Got any pet projects of your own you'd like to share?
