BY: SAMANTHA BARTLETT, DVM

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Pet Insurance Working Group is developing a model law to establish rules for the sale of pet insurance and provision of disclosures to consumers purchasing the insurance. The impact of the model law will vary as states do not have to implement the law and can pick and choose which portions of the law they would like to adopt. The working group was formed as the result of a white paper entitled, “A Regulator’s Guide to Pet Insurance,” released by NAIC in 2019. 

About 20 companies comprise the pet insurance industry across the United States and Canada. The 2020 State of the Industry Report from the North American Pet Health Insurance Association states approximately 2.82 million dogs and cats were insured at the end of 2019 in the U.S. and Canada. Regulation of pet health insurance varies from state to state with some similarities from state to state. While the model law will provide more uniformity from state to state, it will not have much impact on the day-to-day of the veterinary practice.  

The AVMA has a significant role in the working group and the drafting of the model law. For example, the AVMA helped suggest a definition for preexisting condition and has an impact on discussions as to whether veterinary team members need to be trained by insurance companies to discuss insurance products with clients. The AVMA would like to remove any obstacles preventing veterinary staff from being able to discuss insurance products with clients as they believe it would have a negative impact on the industry overall. The AVMA has a webinar on the benefits of pet health insurance as well as a pet health insurance policy page that provides resources to help veterinary teams educate clients on insurance products at https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/avma-policies/pet-health-insurance.