FinTech News
Lemonade Expands into Pet Insurance Market
In recent years, the insurtech company Lemonade has made a splash while helping to popularize renters insurance policies in America. Now the company has branched out into another under-utilized policy option: pet health insurance.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Lemonade CEO Daniel Schreiber explained that 70% of their current renters/homeowners insurance policyholders have pets. Despite this, the vast majority of American pet owners don’t have pet insurance, with only as much as 2% carrying policies. Therefore, the decision to expand into this market made sense for the startup.
Lemonade’s pet insurance policies will start as low as $12 a month. Additionally, those who bundle pet insurance with other Lemonade insurance will earn a 10% discount. In their frequently asked questions, the company explains that policy premium pricing is determined by your pet’s breed, age, and any options you choose to add on.
As for what Lemonade’s pet insurance will cover, they note that diagnostic tests, procedures, medications, accidents, and illnesses will all fall under these policies. Also offered is an optional “wellness package” that provides discounts on annual routine care such as heartworm tests, bloodwork, vaccines, and more. At this time, the company’s pet insurance is available in 32 states as well as the District of Columbia, although the service intends on rolling out the option to other states soon.
Although pet insurance may seem like a novel idea, Schreiber points out that it’s actually not. As he told TechCrunch earlier this year, “Health insurance for pets dates back to over 100 years ago. It started with horses in the Netherlands, and the heir to that pet insurance is actually car insurance. Horses were a mode of transportation, and the insurance was meant to protect you if something happened to that mode of transportation.” However, he went on to note, “But pets are now members of the family.”
Prior to promoting this new insurance type, Lemonade had already been expanding in a few ways. In addition to rolling out to more American states, they also launched their service in Germany last year. That debut has led to an interesting legal battle as T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom filed an injunction against Lemonade claiming that their pink logo infringed on their magenta trademark. Although the company made a temporary adjustment to comply with a court order, it intends to fight Deutsche Telekom on the matter, with Schrieber writing in a scathing press release, “Deutsche Telekom sought to banish the use of pink from a technology blog in the U.S., an aspiring watchmaker seeking crowd-funding on Indiegogo, an invoice processor in Holland, a nine person IT shop in England, and now, it’s claiming it owns pink in the insurance industry, too. If some brainiac at Deutsche Telekom had invented the color, their possessiveness would make sense. Absent that, the company’s actions just smack of corporate bully tactics, where legions of lawyers attempt to hog natural resources – in this case a primary color – that rightfully belong to everyone.”
Considering Lemonade’s growing fanbase and obvious market research, their expansion into pet insurance not only seems poised to bolster the company itself but perhaps also popularize the insurance vertical. That said, despite making impressive progress in adding operating states, it still has a long way to go. In fact, the new pet insurance offering is already available in more American states than their renters insurance policies are. Nevertheless, from pet insurance to pink logos, Lemonade remains a startup worth watching.
