Personal Finance News
Synchrony’s CareCredit Announces Pet Insurance Integration
On the heels of rolling out a partnership with Albertsons, Synchrony has revealed another expansion for its CareCredit program— and one that will benefit pet parents.
About the pet insurance payment experience for CareCredit:
The CareCredit card is launching a new feature for customers with pets. Synchrony (which issues the card) is partnering with Pets Best pet insurance to offer customers a seamless payment solution.
Now, those with both CareCredit and a Pets Best policy can pay for care at a vet that accepts CareCredit. Then, they can file a claim with Pets Best and, once approved and processed, they’ll be automatically reimbursed on their CareCredit card. As Synchrony notes, this reimbursement feature currently has a patent pending.
In addition to this inaugural integration with Pets Best, Synchrony entered into a commercial agreement with Independence Pet Holdings back in March. Under this agreement, the two companies will work to bring more pet insurance brands into the new reimbursement feature going forward.
What they’re saying:
In a statement, Synchrony SVP and GM of Pet Health & Wellness Jonathan Wainberg said, “For more than 35 years, Synchrony has been focused on empowering pet parents to be financially prepared for the lifelong veterinary care their pet needs with solutions like CareCredit. We understand the financial challenges pet parents face, especially with rising costs of care so we keep pushing ourselves to innovate to solve for industry pain points.”
Wainberg added, “By bringing CareCredit and Pets Best together with this new reimbursement technology, pet parents now have a complete financial safety net that’s seamlessly connected.”
My thoughts:
When I first saw this news, I wondered if it might work similarly to a recently announced feature from Bilt. In August, that company introduced a partnership with Walgreens that allows customers to link an eligible FSA/HSA, pay using a credit/debit card, and have the option to charge eligible items to their FSA/HSA afterward. So, in my head, I thought that maybe you’d be able to use your CareCredit card to pay and essentially file a pet insurance claim in doing so. Unfortunately, that’s not quite what’s happening here — although it honestly doesn’t sound too far off.
Even if this new feature may not be quite as exciting as I think it could be, hopefully the streamlined repayment structure does benefit pet parents and prevent them from having to pay vet bills out of pocket. I’m also interested to see this program expand to other pet insurers (Lemonade, perhaps?) in the near future.
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