London, 9 October 2023
London, 9 October 2023
Insurance companies will be able to validate details of the UK’s pets in real time and insure them with greater ease and confidence with the launch of an innovative new pet insurance tool at point of quote.
Pet Check from CRIF, Europe’s leading provider of risk management solutions for the financial services industry, allows insurers to instantly verify a pet’s details - including age, breed, sex, species, breed and pre-existing conditions - , as well as their policy holders' claims history.
The service provides insurers with a broader, more accurate understanding of what insuring that pet could entail, helping to improve the loss ratio, the policy underwriting process, and effectively address the risk of potential underwriting fraud and misrepresentation.
Pet insurers face mounting pressure as claims volumes and payouts hit record highs last year. In fact, at 1.3 million claims notified, the volumes of claims in 2022 were the highest on record, up 28% since 2021.*
Despite the rise in the cost of living, new owners are increasingly likely to want to insure their pets and do their research beforehand, with demand for comprehensive products and streamlined customer services.**
While much of the insurance industry has embraced enriched, third-party data to improve risk models and identify additional factors, pet insurers have often lagged in adopting this technology. This includes struggling to validate the consistency of pet and pet’s owner information disclosed at the quotation stage, or at the inception of a new pet policy.
CRIF’s Pet Check helps solves this for pet insurers, leveraging new data to maintain and grow their market position.
Sara Costantini, Regional Director for the UK & Ireland at CRIF said:
“Insurers appreciate these are tough financial times for many pet owners. They are committed to providing policies that are priced appropriately and give people peace of mind. Pet Check will help them to avoid making a dog’s dinner of the risk assessment process. “We’re pleased to be offering pet insurers next-generation solutions that give them the opportunity to retain and grow their customer base profitably, and in the face of increased competition from new market entrants.”
Pet Check also enables insurers to drill down to the finer details, permitting the underwriting team to assess any discrepancies found with the pet's owner early in the policy lifecycle, ensuring the policy is underwritten according to the true risk involved. This early detection enhances customer experience by reducing disputes with genuine customers later at the claim stage.
The solution is specifically designed to support a hybrid approach for insurers looking to minimise the API integration effort. Whilst pet information is automatically submitted via an API, further analysis is possible through an easy-to-use app.
The launch of Pet Check further bolsters CRIF’s market-leading suite of solutions for pet insurers, which includes the first centralised pet claims database and bespoke fraud detection tools and Pet Score – launched in June this year – which is a sophisticated pricing tool based on geographic location.
* https://www.abi.org.uk/news/news-articles/2023/6/insurers-paid-out-over-1-billion-to-protect-pets-in-2022/
** https://www.postonline.co.uk/market-access/technology/7953436/roundtable-exploring-the-impact-of-the-cost-of-living-crisis-on-pet-insurance-sales-and-renewals
