Why You Need Older Pets!

PVA has undertaken an investigation to better understand what is happening with healthcare plans in today’s market and why the length of time pets are on plan is dropping in certain practices.

The first thing to consider is that UK pet ownership is in a gradual decline, with the percentage of owners dropping from a high of 62% in 2022 (likely as a result of COVID and people spending more time at home), to 57% today, so the opportunity to just rely on puppies and kittens for new sign-ups has fallen. However, we found a bigger contributor to the success (or failure) of practices’ plans.

PVA analysed a large data set* to work out which pets are most valuable to a practice. The assumption was that puppies and kittens would be more valuable when it comes to healthcare plans, not least because they have longer to make use of them.

Our data showed some surprising results, so be prepared to rethink who you should promote your plans to.

We discovered that owners of older pets are considerably more loyal to your plans than owners of other age groups, including pups and kittens!

Here’s what we found.

If you’re only speaking to puppy and kitten owners, you are jeopardising the success of your plans! Pets that join when they’re aged three or more are going to generate more income and improve your net growth. So, how do you engage with this demographic? There are lots of ways to do so and we can provide coaching on these, but here are two quick tips to help.

How do you get older pets to join your plan?

Talk to Everyone

The easiest thing to do is ‘cherry pick’ who you speak to about health plans. Because staff may think they know their clients’ preferences or are unconfident talking about plans, they choose who they think will be interested and only engage with those pet owners. Puppies and kittens are the obvious choices, but older pets are more valuable to you and stay on plan longer. Remind all clients about the benefits of joining your plan.

Make the Conversation Relevant to Their Visit

Plans are an advantage to pet owners for most visits and if you run through the most beneficial elements that relate to their visit, clients can see how it may be of interest to them. If they’re picking up parasiticides, are in for their pet’s annual booster, or are paying for a procedure that qualifies for a plan member discount, it’s only fair that they should be given the opportunity to join your plan and enjoy the benefits there and then.

You can also use our tried and tested ‘four points of contact’ process to make the conversations about your plans so much easier. Just click below to request more information on this or if you’d like to request some staff training to help your staff feel more comfortable talking about plans to everyone.

*Data set = 11,668 plans

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