Zoetis Enters the Pet Insurance Market

Zoetis, the world’s largest pet pharmaceutical company, has jumped into the pet insurance market.

The New Jersey-based company announced that it is rolling out Pumpkin Pet Insurance, which will offer preventive coverage in addition to standard pet medical policies. The company will also offer home delivery of its flea, tick and heartworm medicine to policyholders.

Zoetis partnered with entrepreneur Alex Douzet, co-founder of subscription dog food company Ollie, to create Pumpkin.

This move is a bit surprising, because the pet insurance market is so small compared to the very large pet pharmaceutical industry. Zoetis has a $60 billion dollar market cap and posted over $6 billion in revenue in 2019. Meanwhile, the combined total premium volume for all US & Canadian pet insurance companies was about $1.5 billion last year. Purina exited the pet insurance industry years ago because it’s pet insurance revenue was too small to move the needle compared to pet food sales.

On the other hand, Zoetis is a very entrepreneurial company, constantly buying up businesses and integrating new medicines into its catalog of products targeted to vet practices. Pet insurance could be the start of a new channel that delivers products directly to pet owners, bypassing veterinarians.