PET INSURANCE

Your Guide to Pet Insurance Through Your Employer

4 min read
Aug 07, 2024

Considering getting pet insurance through your employer? The good news is this is becoming a more common benefit — right alongside your own dental and vision insurance — and MetLife Pet Insurance has your furry family protected from nose to tail.

Read on to learn how pet insurance works as an employee benefit, why it might be a good option for your family, and what to do if your employer doesn’t offer it.

Why Do Employers Offer Pet Insurance?

According to MetLife Pet’s research with CivicScience, 70% of full-time employees have at least one pet, and almost 25% of these employees plan to get a pet within the next year.1 Given so many pet parents in the workforce, it’s not surprising employers want to offer pet insurance as a voluntary benefit.

By offering pet insurance as an employee benefit, employers are able to provide financial options that:

  • Help lower the cost of pet care for owners
  • Typically provide a discount on pet insurance plan premiums
  • Give pet parents the ability to choose the coverage they want so it fits their pet’s needs and their budget
  • Ease worries about affording emergency vet expenses

Our research showed 79% of pet parents would experience a negative impact on their finances if their pet needed a $5,000 emergency surgery.1 Having pet insurance can mean getting your pet the medical care they need for a healthy and happy life.

Do Your Employee Benefits Include MetLife Pet?

You May Get a Discount

How Pet Insurance Works as a Benefit

If your employer offers pet insurance as an employee benefit, enroll in a policy per your employer’s instructions. Your premiums will likely be paid by automatic deduction from your paycheck like other types of insurance benefits. Talk with your human resources (HR) department for more details.

Once enrolled, the process for using the insurance is the same as if you’d enrolled on your own. With MetLife Pet as your provider, you can take your pet to any licensed veterinarian in the country, pay the bill, and submit a claim to us for reimbursement. We’ll process your claim in less than 2 weeks and reimburse you for any covered expenses by check or direct payments. Policies are subject to some exclusions, but getting a pet insurance plan could save you hundreds or thousands each year — like these MetLife Pet families that enrolled through their employers:

  • Rich, a young dog from Delaware, and his family were reimbursed over $160 on his regular environmental allergy treatments that cost nearly $180.2
  • Coop, a senior cat from New York, has asthma and needs regular medication. His family was reimbursed more than $120 on his $140 prescription.3
  • A senior cat, Trista, and her Arizona family were reimbursed over $270 on her nearly $340 neuropathy exam.4

What’s Covered by Your Pet Insurance?

Your coverage will vary based on the provider your employer partners with and your exact policy. If your employer chooses Metlife Pet as their pet insurance provider, some of the pet expenses we can typically cover include:

✅ Accidents

✅ Illnesses (including hereditary, congenital, and chronic conditions)

✅ Hospitalizations

✅ Surgeries

Exam fees

✅ Diagnostic tests (like X-rays and ultrasounds)

✅ Prescription medications and food

Holistic care and alternative therapies

Here’s another real-life story from MetLife Pet policyholders about Skip — a senior dog from Virginia — who had coverage for his exam and diagnostic fees.

Skip started getting sick and losing weight. After being diagnosed with protein-losing enteropathy, he needed regular exams and diagnostics to monitor his condition. One of his exams cost around $470, but since his pet parents had enrolled in a dog insurance policy through their employer before Skip got sick, that vet bill was reimbursed more than $420.5

Why Should You Get Pet Insurance Through an Employer?

If you’re wondering whether to buy a policy on your own or enroll through the provider your employer partners with, it might help to think about your budget and what kind of coverage you need.

You can typically take advantage of group discounts available through your employer, which may result in a lower monthly premium. By enrolling in MetLife Pet Insurance through your employer, you can get a 10% discount,6,7 and coverage of previously covered pre-existing conditions when switching pet insurance providers.8 This provides a chance to continue saving money if your pet’s health conditions would otherwise be excluded from coverage when getting a new policy.

Other reasons to choose MetLife Pet

Choosing MetLife Pet to help protect your furry family comes with even more benefits. You can customize your plan’s reimbursement rate (get up to 90% on covered expenses), deductible, and annual limit.9,10,11 Plans can start at $16 per month for one dog and $7 per month for one cat.12 Plus, you can put multiple pets on one policy with our family plan and have them share a deductible — the only one offered on the market.13,14

Some additional reasons MetLife Pet may be a great provider for you include:

How Can You Get Pet Insurance Through Your Employer?

Check your benefits package, or speak with your HR representative to learn if your company offers pet insurance as a benefit. For more information about pet insurance in general, explore some frequently asked questions.

What To Do if Your Employer Doesn’t Offer Pet Insurance

If your employer doesn’t offer pet insurance, ask if they’d consider adding it to their benefits package. About 52% of employees report their employer doesn’t offer sufficient benefits for their pet,1 so it’s surely worth asking about. And if you’re an employer looking for more information on how to offer pet insurance to your employees, visit MetLife.com.

If you like what you see and your employer doesn’t offer MetLife Pet policies as a benefit, you can always get a quote directly from us and enroll on your own!

Sign Up for MetLife Pet & Save With Your Employee Benefit Program

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