Pets: The overlooked dependents in modern employee benefits.

Kristie Cook: Hello, everyone, and welcome. Thanks for joining us. We're going to give just a couple of minutes to let others get settled and join in, and then we will jump into our conversation.

While we're waiting, we would love to hear where you're calling in from today, where you're joining us from across the country, if you would like to drop in your city or state of where you're located this morning. That would be awesome. I am, just south of Nashville, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

What about you, Aaron? I heard it's 108 where you are today.

Aaron Oaks: It is, or it will be soon, at least. I'm in Tempe, Arizona, so just east of Phoenix.

Kristie Cook: Los Angeles… Let's see… San Diego County, Chandler, Arizona… Salt Lake City… We're all over this morning. Well, we're excited today to talk about a topic that's gaining a lot of momentum.

And that is why employers are considAarong pet benefits more now than ever before. We know HR leaders are always looking for new ways to support their teams, expand their benefit portfolios, and pets are a bigger part of that story than ever before. So that's what we're going to get into today. If you're just joining, we would love to hear where you're calling in from today. what part of the country you're in, you can just drop that in the chat.

And we're going to use the chat feature a little bit today. Feel free to drop in any questions along the way. We will have a Q&A at the end, but the audio is muted for everyone except for myself and Aaron, so if you have a question or a great pet story, feel free to use the chat for that. We have, Nevada, Pueblo, Colorado, California. Lots of West Coast peeps in the call today.

And also wanted to share, we will send a recording and the slides out tomorrow, so for all registrants, they will receive an email with that information tomorrow.

Okay, let's see, we'll give it… yep, we'll go ahead and do this, too. Little icebreaker for everyone, just to kick things off. Since today's call is about the role pets play in our lives and our workplaces, we would love to get to know about your extended furry family friends.

If you have a pet at home, not drop their name in, or their breed, a fun fact or story about them, and if you don't have a pet, maybe drop in your dream pet. My dream pet is a little mini Highland Cow, you know, because I'm in my TikTok era, and so that's all you see on there are the cute Highland cows.

But we also have a horse, she doesn't stay here in our yard, but, we are a big pet family here as well. Hollywood, a German Shepherd. Bernie Doodle.

Aaron Oaks: 14 years old.

Kristie Cook: Yes. So, Ronnie, I have a 14-year-old geriatric Labradoodle, And I don't know what I'm gonna do without her, but… Piper, Jackson, Jasmine, my goodness, Athena has a lot of pets. 4-year-old mixed pup from Tijuana, that's super cool.

Aaron Oaks: Christy, my pet story, in our vows, so as you can imagine, we're both… my wife and I are both big pet people. My wife vowed, to me that the number of pets would never exceed the number of human beings in the household. And about a year and a half after that, we were blessed to find out we were pregnant with twins.

And it was the first ultrasound, you know, we're crying and processing, and literally walking out of the clinic, my wife looked at me and said, does this mean we can get two more dogs?

So that was a loophole that I didn't really consider. We actually have held it to two dogs. We have the two kids, and actually a third, we went for a third kid before a third pet, but probably at some point, that third pet will be in the cards.

Kristie Cook: So that vow was just out the window, real… with one visit to the… to the doctor. Wow, that's a fun story. We've got a Roxy Yorkie, that's fun. Roxy's a super fun name. We once had a horse named Roxy. Coco and Frankie, gotta love a little Frenchie.

Aaron Oaks: Snow, that's fun.

Kristie Cook: Okay, I could do this all day, guys, but I know, you would probably prefer we jump into the content. So, thank you so much for sharing. If you're just joining, and we're dropping in the names of our pets and their breeds, or a little funny story about them, so feel free to continue to do that. It's clear pets are a big part of families, which is exactly what we're here to talk about. So, real quick, we'll do some quick introductions. I am Christy Cook. I am an Executive and Team Lead on our client success team here at Nava Benefits.

Believe it or not, I am a true benefits geek, and I have been doing this, been in the benefits industry for 23 years now, and this is actually what I went to college to do. I was a business major and just kind of fell in love with risk management and insurance, and so here I am. Aaron, I hope your story's a little more interesting than mine.

Aaron Oaks: Well, honestly, since the third grade, I wanted to lead a small voluntary benefits company in the pet space, so… no, I'm just kidding. I spent most of my career in what I now lovingly call non-pet healthcare, so I started on the human side and worked in medical devices.

And was a consultant for large healthcare providers for several years, but I've always been a passionate animal lover, and with… joined UPC about 5 years ago, and it was kind of this marriage of a space that I was really passionate about in animal welfare and animal care with, kind of a healthcare-like system that I was very comfortable with. So, it's been a great ride ever since.

Kristie Cook: Awesome. And I love Diana's comment about when her dog passed, her supervisor let her take bereavement. That's… that's just amazing. I love to hear that. I'm definitely gonna need a mental health day, when that day comes, which I hope is no time soon. Little Daisy is… 14, and wearing her shoes, and happy as a clam. Oh goodness, 6… 6 cats, 1 dog.

So fun. Okay, I'm gonna close my chat for a minute, because I'm going to be distracted with that. But here's just a quick agenda about what we're going to talk about today. We'll dig into why pets are showing up on HR teams' agendas, and what's driving that shift.

We'll then talk about a business case on how offering pet benefits, can help support recruitment, retention, and company culture. And we'll also walk through what pet benefits actually look like today, since there's more available than we've ever had before. It used to just be strictly, you know, individual plans, and there's many more options out there, which Aaron is here to talk to us about today.

After that, we'll cover how these programs really work for HR and employees, and finally, we'll share some tips to boost engagement and adoption, so your investment and your time and energy put into implementing these plans, pays off.

And again, we're going to take time for Q&A at the end, but if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to drop those in the chat along the way. I'm going to turn my chat back on, now that I've… now that I've opened that up. So… Some of you might already be clients of Nava, or you may be familiar with our name, but for those, who haven't heard about us yet, here's what makes Nava a little different.

At Nava, we see ourselves as your modern benefits co-pilot, or I like to say your benefits bestie. That means we combine really, smart technology along with the best and brightest in the industry that we've kind of cherry-picked from, our larger competitors.

We have an AI-powered benefits platform with real human expertise behind that. We don't just hand you software and say, here you go. At Nava, you get a combination of both, incredible technology and very tenured client success teams that help you and your HR teams.

And we're not just here for annual renewals. I love to say that. You know, we're not just here for the Super Bowl of benefits.

That comes around once a year. We're here to support HR teams, their employees, and especially their families all year long.

Whether it's answering tough questions, helping with tricky situations, or making sure everyone gets the most out of their benefits. Bottom line here, we want to make your life easier as an HR professional, and help your finance team control costs and ensure your benefits actually deliver value for your people.

Aaron Oaks: And just a very brief bit about us, United Pet Care. So, I think most people are, probably at this point, familiar with pet insurance. We are a little bit of a different take, and so we're actually closer to an HMO, or a direct primary care organization for fur babies.

Very long story short, we go negotiate discounts off of usual and customary fees with in-network vets, and that's meaningful for a couple of reasons. One, it allows us to distribute as a true group product, something that we'll talk about later, but we know that the double-edged sword of adding new benefits is that it can create a part-time job with administration headache and keeping up with payroll deductions and things like that.

And so, our product is, flat rate. Every pet qualifies, and every pet pays the same rate. So the other reason that that's meaningful is, so, Christy, for, like, your Daisy, Tara for Casper, every pet pays the same rate, regardless of age, breed, pre-existing conditions. We actually have a 21-year-old cat that's on the plan. And Athena, I saw that you mentioned it's encouraging to see the cat's ages. It really is an amazing time. A cat born today actually has a life expectancy that's almost double a cat born 30 years ago, which is incredible, but that certainly means that a longer period of senior life and just potentially much more expensive end-of-life care as we're kind of stretching out the lifespan of these pets. And that's the reason that we exist, because we saw a big gap in coverage, particularly for older pets and pets with pre-existing conditions, and we also felt like there could be a better model for servicing employer groups Specifically.

We've been around since 1996, we work with thousands of employers across the country, and as well as incredible broker partners like Nava. And so, I'll start with kind of setting the table about why we're all here. Christy, you spoke to it very well. I would say pets are now… pet benefits are now becoming, really a growing part of a modern benefits package. 95% of their pets consider… pet parents consider their pet to be a family member, and actually a full 91% of employees would consider leaving or have left their job if it interferes with caring with their pet.

The joke that my team has heard me say too many times is that plants are the new pets, pets are the new kids, and kids are the new exotic animals. You have to be rich and a little crazy to think about having kids these days.

But the reality is, is that especially now for the younger portion of the American workforce, Millennials and Gen Z, they either are delaying having children or are not having children at all, and pets truly are considered to be those starter children.

And my favorite statistic from a human resources perspective is that now, actually, more working Americans have recurring veterinary care or pet care bills than have vision care bills, so then wear glasses or contacts.

And again, focusing on the left-hand side of that chart, that ratio is actually 2 to 1 for Gen Z and Millennials. So one of the things that we challenge our broker partners to think about, and our HR partners as well, is, are you presenting a boomer benefits package to a largely millennial and Gen Z workforce? There's been, I would say, kind of a steady consistency with voluntary benefits for the last two, three, four generations, but the needs and the priorities of the workforce have changed, and of course, I'm a little bit biased, but we think one of those shifts, another one is mental health and financial wellness, is that now this giant preponderance of the American workforce do consider themselves to be pet parents.

And that 23 million number, you know, since 2020, obviously we know what happened in Q1 of 2020, but one of those kind of interesting second-order effects of the pandemic, a lot of people were working from home, looking for companionship. It was a very isolating and lonely time for people, and so we adopted pets in record numbers and have retained those pets who are now kind of creeping up on that senior pet status, so a lot of those COVID puppies are getting to be 5, 6, 7 years old. Care is getting a little bit more expensive now.

The other thing that we track that may be new to this group is the concept of petflation, which is a natural thing. There's a basket of pet-related goods that get measured, and with all the attention, rightfully so, that's been paid to core inflation, petflation over the last several years has actually outpaced Core inflation by about 2.5 times.

And so, you know, these numbers kind of in isolation may not be meaningful, but I think where the rubber meets the road is that half of employees, I think everybody's familiar with this stat, can't afford an expected expense of any kind of $500 or more. I think where that really gets localized with the younger workforce is they rescued these pets, maybe a lot of first-time pet owners that don't have a great idea of how expensive pets can be. and the costs that are associated with it. Everything is kind of well and good into the puppy and kitten phase, and then you're hit with that first vet bill.

And as anybody who's an HR stakeholder, you know, here knows, or a pet parent, you have that sick pet at home, and it is very akin to having a sick child. So you have an employee that's distracted, that's potentially taking time off work, and that is going to be under a significant amount of financial stress, that in growing numbers are turning to their employer to say, how can you be a partner to help me through this?

Which, to me is just as real an expense and just as real a stressor. as if I have to take my kid in to the pediatrician.

Kristie Cook: Good stuff. Good stats there, Aaron, thank you. So a quick poll, if you guys don't mind participating, just drop your answer right in here, on the poll that popped up. Does your company currently offer any kind of pet benefit?

And we'll give everyone just a few seconds to respond, and then we'll see what it looks like, what our results look like.

We're gonna have a few polls as we go. I'm a big advocate of polls. I think it helps break up just listening to Aaron and myself just rattle on. So let's see what our results look like.

So, pretty close to a 50-50 split there. Aaron, how does that compare with what you would typically see in terms of number of employers offering a pet benefit?

Aaron Oaks: So, I would say now the balance is actually tipped. The majority of the work employers report offering some sort of pet-related benefit. Now, that certainly varies by sector and company size and things like that, but now over half of employers say that they do offer, or will in the coming year, offer some sort of pet-focused benefit.

Kristie Cook: Okay. So, I think we're going to talk about a fun buzzword for HR teams coming up, which is ROI. So, why does this make sense for us to spend our time and bandwidth, implementing a new benefit? So, pet benefits are practical at… to the point… all the points Aaron addressed, you know, a lot, a lot of, a lot, especially our younger generation, a lot more people have pets, they adopted them during the pandemic.

And maybe now are realizing, oh, wow, I didn't know what I got myself into. So, pet benefits can be a practical and real measure… be a real measurable value, for your population. They're at low or no cost as an employer to offer. Pet benefits increase employee retention and loyalty. People stay longer when they feel like they're truly supported by their employer.

These benefits can help reduce absenteeism. Employees are less likely to miss work due to pet emergencies when they feel supported. Supporting pets supports the total well-being of your workforce, including physical, emotional, and financial health.

offering pet benefits, helps your company stand out to top talent. It shows that you care about the whole person and not just their work. And, you know, I've worked at home since 2017, so I'm a pre-pandemic work-from-home girl, and… I don't know what I would do without my pet. I mean, it's just me here all day, you know, 40, 60 hours a week before my kids are in and out of the house, and so she is just an incredible coworker. And so, I know many of you feel the same way about your cats and dogs and other animals, and I love when I'm on a Zoom meeting and someone's cat walks across the keyboard. No longer do we cringe when that happens, or when the doorbell rings. and the dog barks. It's just become a new way of life.

So I think the takeaway here is that pet benefits are a smart investment that really is just a time investment of getting it implementing and choosing the right plan, but not a financial investment for an employer, and it leads to happy… happier, healthier, and more loyal employees.

So, another quick poll for you coming up. What is most important to you as you evaluate voluntary benefits for your organization? Is it the cost to the employee, the ease of administration, or the employee, demand? So, if I were answering this, I would say ease of administration, because part of my job is helping our clients navigate administrative hurdles.

And so, we'll talk about this more in a bit, but when you offer a voluntary benefit, if I have a vendor trying to sell that to me and my client, the first thing I'm asking is, what is the administrative lift?

But let's see what our results show. I'm in good company. Yes, we do not want to cause more of a headache for HR teams. Perfect.

Would you agree with that, Aaron? Do you hear a lot of feedback about, what does this mean for me? What do I have to do as an HR leader?

Aaron Oaks: Absolutely. I mean, I think HR teams today are expected to do more with less, and balancing demands, along with kind of a proliferation of voluntary benefits over the course of the last couple years. So, it is the, you know, I think oftentimes it can go unspoken, because it feels like, you know, it's a consideration that's not employee-centric, but it really is, because at the end of the day, these need to be effectively administered And the teams only have so many hours in the day.

Yeah, I would say really all three of these things probably are important to some level, so you don't want to make trade-offs if you can avoid it. But certainly, it sits with HR, because I think everybody knows this, if HR doesn't have the capacity to really stand behind something, then it's going to affect employee and client demand, it's going to affect the employee experience, so there's that trickle-down effect. If HR doesn't have the capacity or isn't bought in to offering the benefit. Because it just makes it difficult or degrades the experience for the employee as well.

Kristie Cook: Yep, I concur, Aaron, thank you. So, a few more stats for you, and these are really staggering, just in terms of the consistency. I'll let you guys read over those.

But, really what I take from this is that strong culture is a magnet for top talent. Top talent does not want to work in a toxic environment. They've been there, done that, and the market is broad. They can go find somewhere where they feel like they're being supported. So, it keeps… strong culture keeps employees engaged, and including pet benefits in your package is a simple, meaningful way to support your employees.

Here at Nava, we have a Slack channel that is dedicated to just pets. And so, we hop in there and drop pictures of our pets in costumes at Halloween, or when they do something, a little short video of them doing something funny. And it's amazing how something that simple really impacts culture and morale. So if you don't have that, I encourage you to find a platform for your population to share their pet fur baby pictures and videos.

It's one of my favorite channels here at Nava. But just to sum up this slide, you know, 82% of HR professionals believe in pet benefits in terms of recruitment and retention. 87% agree it fosters loyalty, 84% of employees at organizations that offer pet benefits are more satisfied, so I think it really speaks to the culture of an organization.

We have one other poll. I'll let you take this one, Aaron.

Aaron Oaks: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I would say for a long time, it was, you know, pet insurance had kind of existed very much on the fringes of the voluntary benefit world, and it was really kind of the only game in town. Now there are a wider range of options that are available than ever before, kind of reflecting the attention that's now been paid to the space, or the demand that's come from an employee perspective. And, you know, we could go kind of a thousand miles deep on any of and certainly would be open to in the Q&A, but just at a high level, I wanted to provide an overview, for those that may not be familiar, of some of the different models that are available today.

So pet insurance is the one that I would say probably most folks are familiar with. It is technically, or it is a property and casualty product, although it really works or looks more like a health insurance product. And that is generally accident and illness-related coverage for unexpected vet bills.

That is an individual product, which just means that the pet does get rated, they have to qualify, and then each individual pet pays an individual rate.

The pet discount or membership plan, which is really kind of what UPC's core product, is categorized as. is more of a network-based, so you do have to go in-network, as I mentioned, but the flat-rated, and it basically gives you, for generally a lower average rate, about 30% of the average rate of pet insurance, you can get discounts at participating providers, on any services, both wellness and up to and including emergency services.

Another one that has come on that oftentimes gets rolled into one or both of the first two is virtual vet support. So I smile a little bit when I say this, but, you know, telehealth, obviously everybody knows, has been a big boom, again, post-COVID, and those same services are available. Looks a little different, you're obviously not having, you know, Daisy up on the camera describing her symptoms, but it's amazing what now you can do with a really good iPhone camera. or even just chatting in and helping a veterinary professional. I always, you know, use the Halloween candy analogy. It's 10 o'clock at night, and your dog got into your kid's Halloween candy basket, and you need to know, you know, how many bite-sized Snickers bars before you need to be really worried. Anybody who's gone into an emergency vet knows that you can spend $500 very easily just to cross the door and to get the pet assessed. when oftentimes, that is not necessary. And so there are now several different kind of flavors of offerings, but I'd say that's kind of the most classic one.

There are also pet wellness plans, which, as the name would suggest, is just basically, you can prepay for some pet wellness services and get reimbursed. It's still a reimbursement model, but with specific categories.

And then the one that I put kind of all the way out on the fringe, because just in the interest of full transparency, we do not allow pets in our workplace, even being as kind of pet-centric, you know, an employer as we possibly can be, but you can… accept pets into the workplace. I don't remember who called it out in the chat, but I tell you, other pet-related perks are becoming much more commonplace as well. And so, paternity leave, bereavement leave for a pet, so we actually call it pawaternity leave, where you get a couple of days of PTO, and then also some work-from-home time, knowing those first couple weeks are really important when breaking in and acclimating a pet. Other pet-related discounts, and then pet-related offices as well.

So as you can see, you know, really there's now this gamut of offerings that, that run the spectrum. Again, probably a little bit biased here, but back to using the vision care analogy, you know, my view is most employers find it's pretty reasonable to offer maybe one, or certainly one, but maybe two or more vision-related benefits, and we firmly believe that in the next couple of years, that same expectation will be set.

Where there's a range of options made available to employees, just given how many, for how many employees this benefit is relevant.

Kristie Cook: So I have an off-the-cuff quick question, Aaron, don't mean to put you on the spot, but, with the pet discount platform, which is similar to what you have at UPC, how often do those rates change? Are you seeing them adjust with inflation? And if so, is that once annually that those rates change, or do they stick for the duration of the contract?

Aaron Oaks: It's a great question. Very rarely… I'll speak only from my… our standpoint, we change rates only when we're adding a significant value add to the membership.

And so, the last time that we raised rates was when we bundled in a televet provider, so we now offer those services as well. Kind of the nice thing about the negotiated rates off of usual and customary fees is that that value, you know, increases with inflation, but that value still holds, so we actually, our underlying costs don't change. We're just actually able to pay, you know, pass on greater savings as costs rise, which You know, it's an unfortunate reality for a consumer, but if those rates are going up, then you may as well try to get a discount where you can.

Kristie Cook: Okay, real quick before we go to the next slide, on that note, I just wanted to share just some personal experience I've seen for clients. So, when you have a pet insurance plan that is an individual plan, but offered through the employer, one administrative hurdle, if it is payroll deducted, is that those rates are fluid, and the plan years are fluid. So, that means it's not going to be a January 1 renewal, it's going to be whatever date Christie Cook the employee was hired and elected those benefits, and so you have this constant rate change going on. And so you have to have a really good process or feed in place with your pet insurance carrier so that you're able to update those deductions and pull the premiums correctly. And that has been the number one hurdle I've seen with clients in pet insurance.

Aaron Oaks: Yep. And the last thing that we want to do is create a part-time job for somebody that's really doing something that's, you know, quite frankly, still an important benefit, but a nice-to-have benefit.

Kristie Cook: Exactly. Okay. I got a little ahead of myself on the last slide. Now it's time for another poll. What, for the audience, what is your top challenge when rolling out new benefits? Not just pet benefits, but in general. Is it too much admin or limited bandwidth? Is it the cost? Lack of employee interest? Or limited guidance or support from my broker. Mmm, I think number one is gonna be really high on the list.

Right, let's see what it looks like, Autumn. There you go. Too much admin or bandwidth. So, yes, you're right, Aaron, HR professionals are being asked to do way more, with way less headcount, typically.

And so, it's hard for HR professionals to wrap their mind around anything that's not necessary or anything extra. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that. How can we make, offering pet benefits a little bit easier, or what you should consider if you're, thinking about adding it to your portfolio?

Aaron Oaks: And I think the lack… oh, sorry, just…

Kristie Cook: Go ahead.

Aaron Oaks: I think the lack of employee interest is a very real one, too, and we'll talk about, just engagement strategies, but I will say, you know, I'm sure everybody on this call can relate, just engaging the workforce on a benefits package writ large can be a real challenge, and I think that, you know. at the end of the day, we… the worst case outcome is we roll something out, and nobody participates, and it feels like it falls flat. So, I think there's some tips and tricks that Christie will share, and I can offer some color there as well, because I do… there have been studies that have shown that once you get people in that motion, because you find a low-dollar, highly relevant benefit, it actually makes them more inclined to participate in other benefits, and so the rising tide, you know, they kind of say, oh, well, now I'm using this.

I got some value out of it, so maybe next year I'm gonna go back and participate in some benefits that I hadn't considered before.

Kristie Cook: Definitely. It's all about word of mouth and a good experience, right?

Okay, so what to look for in a pet benefit solution? So, things you want to consider, and most of these are true for any benefit you're considering adding. You definitely want to look for seamless integration, with your current HR and VIN admin systems.

So you want to make sure you can automate. We don't want to add a manual process, that becomes a part-time job, to Aaron's point. You also want to prioritize simplicity, and this is true for me and my clients, like, if they're considering accident, hospital, and indemnity, critical illness, I want those plans to be as simple as possible, meaningful, but simple. You don't need a high-low, you don't need, you know, 3 options for each benefit.

It just gets lost in the shuffle, and it's very challenging to administer. And then it's very important for it to be clear to employees. They need to be able to easily understand what the product is for, how it can help them, and be meaningful to them. Transparent pricing is also key. You don't want a huge price chart that you have to, you know. peer review and put in your benefits guide, or manually key somewhere. It needs to be simple and transparent. I'm a big advocate for pet benefits, because in client surveys, we are always going to see it, and it's probably going to be at the top of the list near tuition reimbursement, or childcare, if I had to guess. But yes, we see it literally on every single employee survey.

And we do conduct employee surveys, for all of our clients here at Nava as often or as little as they want, and do all the heavy lifting there as well.

Another poll, guys. How much did you spend last year at the vet, and… I know for me, I think I'm probably in the $1,000 to $2,500 range just for my one geriatric Labradoodle. But let's see what the crowd says here. Those of you with multiple, multiple cats, multiple dogs, I'm sure you can relate.

I'm guessing the third bucket's gonna be the highest, Aaron.

Aaron Oaks: That's about in line with our average, you know, when we survey our members, yep.

Kristie Cook: Yep. I mean, just to get their teeth cleaned, to get their vaccines, all the normal stuff, plus one little mishap, and you're… you're really encroaching on that 2500 number. Okay, thank you guys so much for participating. This helps… helps keep it moving and keep it fun for us.

I think you're up next, Aaron.

Aaron Oaks: Yeah, so, mentioned it a little bit earlier, but as pets are getting older, I think, you know. that stage of life that the majority of American pets are reaching is going to be naturally a more expensive one. And it seems like this group is, maybe unfortunately very well versed in the expense of veterinary care, but I think one of the things that I, you know, didn't have a full appreciation for is, you know, just a little aside. I first got introduced to the veterinary industry when I was working in the radiation oncology space.

And we were selling about 3% of our equipment, and it's the same, you know, multi-million dollar pieces of capital equipment into the veterinary space. Flash forward to today, that percentage is actually close to 20%.

And so, again, you know, the positive trend in this is pets are living longer. We have a wider array of options available to treat pets. They actually are getting treatments for things like tumors and surviving and going on and living, you know, long and high-quality lives. But the very real costs associated with that, I think most people probably don't have a full appreciation for. veterinarians are doctors, you know, they graduate with, on average, about $300,000 in medical debt. And so, I think, you know, the American public probably has a little bit of a disconnect between how much I love my pet and realizing, you know, what that care entails. That willingness to pay is really high, but the ability to pay oftentimes is compromised.

And so, again, that's really the reason that we exist in the marketplace, and the reason that we feel an employee benefit can really provide meaningful, lasting value to employees who have that love, but maybe don't have the appreciation, the awareness, or the ability to pay for that care when it comes up.

Kristie, you also bring up a really good point, you know, teeth cleaning and preventative and things. I'd say there's, I always say, folks, if you're in that $0 to $500 bucket, you probably should have been in the bucket that was maybe a little bit higher than that. It is really easy to, you know, skip on some of the preventative care. We're guilty of that, you know, as human beings, right? I call it the ostrich defense, where you're worried about what a visit is going to cost. you, so you don't go to the doctor, you don't go to the pet, you don't go to the vet, and then whatever that condition that may have been able to be treated for a relatively reasonable fee gets worse over time, it gets more expensive, and, you know, the worst case is the pet suffers in the interim.

So, the reason that our plan exists is we want to decrease the financial anxiety around a trip to the vet, so that people do come early and often, and maybe you have a couple more, you know, $500 to $1,000 years, but you avoid that $2,500 plus year, because you're getting regular and routine care and diagnosing things before they become really big, really expensive problems.

Kristie Cook: Yep, same as those preventive screens on the human side, Aaron. That's right. We can prevent the heart attack, potentially, if you go in for your annual physical.

Aaron Oaks: That's right, exactly. So I want to talk a little bit now about engagement best practices. So, led into this a little bit before, but I would say, and you know, again, Christy, to your point, we can kind of abstract this up to just a voluntary benefits level, right? Enrollment can really be confusing. We are throwing a lot at folks during a very critical time. There's a pretty short window through which people have to make decisions. the major decisions of those are what I call kitchen table conversations, and so you only have so much kind of mental bandwidth and capacity left over. You really don't want, at the end of the kind of tail end of the benefits stack, to have a whole bunch of options that are really difficult to kind of determine if I'm going to see value out of this as an employee.

Oftentimes you can have a lot of claims and paperwork. Again, that's just creating an administrative burden on the employee that, as any HR stakeholder knows, can get bubbled up to HR. If there's questions, if they don't understand how something works, then their first call is the broker. So again, you've kind of created a part-time job for folks when really that maybe could be avoided with a more simple plan design.

The other thing, it can be about coverage. If coverage is unclear, cost and savings are unclear. Again, I think just in benefits, you know, writ large, transparency is everybody's friend. The clear, you know, I think when you get into a really bad spot with employees, is that there's a misalignment of expectations. And, you know, we all know in this business that even if it was kind of spelled out, if it wasn't simple. and clear to understand, probably in video format and infographic format, even if all the information was there, if it wasn't accessible to the employee, then it may as well not have been there at all. And when they go to actually try to use the benefit, then I would say, you know, that… then again, they come back to you as HR, they come back to their broker.

And the last one that I want to really hit on is that employee engagement. And this is where, you know, I think the pet benefit category can be a little bit of an unlock to better benefits participation overall. I say this with love, this is what I've chosen to do for, you know, for my career. We have a benefit that I will admittedly say is maybe more interesting than it is important, when a lot of voluntary benefits are probably more important than they are interesting. It can be really difficult to get employees fired up about accidental death and dismemberment. I'm sure, Christy, you can probably do it. I know you're very passionate and talented, but anybody who has a pet, probably 8 of the 10 photos on their phone are of that pet. Slack channels related to pets are very popular, and so, you know, I always tell all of our clients. what comes with offering our benefit is stock photos of puppies and kittens that you should shamelessly use in all of your marketing materials to really, you know, promote yourselves and the hard work that you're putting in to offer best-in-class benefits to your employees. And I think just naturally, those, you know, kind of that subject matter makes it easier for employees to engage.

Obviously, we hope they participate, but even if they don't end up participating, it just gives them… it gives them to take a second look, or forces them to take a second look at their benefits package.

Kristie Cook: Excuse me, this slide really pertains to all benefits. A lot of what we've talked about in terms of communication, engagement, ROI is applicable across the board in the benefits package. It's super important, regardless of the benefit you're offering, to communicate often and early, to make enrollment effortless. I mean, it's got to be automated, it's got to take 5 minutes or less, you know, you're going to lose your audience.

And you also have to keep benefits top of mind, and by that, just really, what is your population asking for? What is meaningful for them? What is meaningful for one might not be meaningful for another, or what's meaningful for the C-suite may not be meaningful for your boots-on-the-ground workforce.

So, you know, you can't… if you're going to offer something, you've got to take the time and effort to make sure you have a good plan in place to launch it, and I believe the key to that is, to a successful benefits program is having a strong relationship with a broker that is a true partner. They're not just a broker and a consultant for a few weeks a year as you're getting ready for open enrollment. They're truly there and engaged, and in the slower times in the year. really being creative and looking for ways to help HR teams improve the quality of their benefit program. So, here at Nava, we've invested, of course, in technology, as well as in top talent.

So that we can fuel great outcomes for our clients. So, I would, urge you to nudge your broker and consultant, to help you with this, if this is something you want to consider. you know, don't just feel like you have to take it on your own. You should have support there.

Okay, so next step to launch benefits. Know your people, know your population, survey your employees. If you don't have a platform for that internally, ask your broker or consultant to help you with that. Again, here at Nava, we will do all the heavy lifting on that, and then on the back end, give you a really nice one- or two-page deliverable, that you can share with your organization so that they see you're actually reviewing the analytics That come out of that survey, and also share it with your leadership team. excuse me, lean into your broker. Let them do as much for you as possible. They may not, they may not be putting themselves out there to really support you in terms of HR and administration.

And the things in addition to open enrollment, but they really should be, lock and step with you, to help your… make sure your implementation is successful.

And then set yourself up for success. Again, I can't, harp on communication enough, so not just communicating in a benefit guide or in an open enrollment meeting, but getting creative and meeting your population where they are, whether that's email, Slack, even a snail mail, postcard in the mail, home, but just trying to even survey your population to know how they want you to communicate with them, and then lean into your broker to have them help you execute those communications.

Aaron Oaks: I would say, well said, Christine. You know, just to add, too, I would say keep your carriers accountable, too, and that's also the job of your broker, but we are, you know, all by extension parts of your team, and extensions of your reputation as well. So even things like utilization, you know, CSAT scores for the providers, the people that are using the benefit, is the carrier talking to them, getting their feedback? Are they ensuring that they are, you know, signing up and activating their membership, you know, things like that, I think, all become really important, but again, no feasible way that you all as a central HR team can do that, so know that you're not alone, and if it feels like you are alone, it probably means that there may be better partners out there from a broker and carrier perspective, because they should care more, certainly as much as all of you, in making sure that not just it doesn't end at open enrollment, but that these employees are engaged throughout the And that they're really having a lasting, positive experience with the benefits that you procured for them.

Kristie Cook: For sure. Okay, so just a quick summary of our top takeaways here. Pet benefits have become essential for attracting and retaining top talent. I think 10 years ago, people would have thought I was crazy saying that, but in our post-COVID world is definitely the reality. Supporting every employee also means supporting every family member. And literally, when I sign thank-you notes and Christmas cards, it's all of our names and Daisy, right, at the end.

So she's definitely one of our family. Modern pet benefits can be a lot simpler than they used to be, and much simpler than other benefits to implement from an administrative standpoint. And the right solution can help boost morale. So, it's the worst renewal season in 15 years. Wall Street Journal put out an article last year. So, if your message to your employees this year is, our plans are not going to be as good, or our rates are going up. up significantly. Pet benefits might be a great option for you to have a morale boost in your messaging that doesn't cost your organization anything to implement. It's also a good time to do it when other things aren't changing, right? And if an employee doesn't have to pay attention to every minute detail through open enrollment, they may pay attention to your voluntary benefits offerings more this year than they will in a year with a lot of other checks.

So, if you're interested in exploring pet benefits further, I would say reach out to our team.

Autumn on the back end is going to send out the recording and contact information tomorrow, on Thursday, but we're here, ready here and here to help. If you have another brokerage partner, then I would, encourage you to lean into them and have them help you with this conversation.

So before we head into Q&A, and I know we have one Q&A already, Aaron, so I'll touch on that in just a moment, but we do have another webinar coming up, and this is a great topic, especially for HR and finance teams. We're teaming up with Blue Raven Actuarial Service and Function Health to explore how employers can use personalized health insights and actuarial modeling to build smarter, more proactive benefit strategies. What that really is a fancy way of saying is we're going to help you learn how to think through the data you've been given by your carrier. So if you're fully insured, you're not going to get as much data as a level-funded or a self-funded client, but the intent of this webinar is to help you bifurcate that data and figure out what it means in terms of helping you make decisions with your strategy for future future years. So that will… let's see,

Autumn's gonna… Autumn dropped in the link for you there, so join us on October 14th, or register so that you get a copy of the recording and the slides. And with that, if you have questions, please drop them in, and I've got one for you real quick. Adam, it is… let's see… Or Aaron, can you address the discount and Dell providers that include various pet services?

Why is it better to offer directly rather than through a discount provider?

I'll stop there and let you take that, Aaron.

Aaron Oaks: I'm maybe not familiar, I guess what a discount provider would be?

Kristie Cook: Discount.

Aaron Oaks: So I will say we're, our product, we don't license our network. The discounts that we negotiate, we don't sell to any third parties. I would maybe be wary if… that is happening, because it is an undifferentiated benefit. It's super important to us that our members, or that anyone is only able to access it through their employer, because that is the channel that we're committed to.

So I would say, if… maybe the question is about the benefit… or, like, kind of the discount marketplace, like a benefit hub, or, you know, that kind of a thing.

I mean, I can tell you from first-hand experience, and Christy, please, you know, chime in as well, it just doesn't feel like a benefit. It's, you know, you go in, there's 10,000 options, it feels like I could probably put my email address in, and I could get some similar discounts.

And uptake is very low, and it doesn't really register from an employee's perspective, as this is something that my employer has done for me, because quite frankly. there's not much that you have to do, you know, it's just, it's punting a little bit on it and saying, hey, knock yourselves out, you know, here's 1-800-Flowers.com next to a pet insurance product, next to a gym membership. Right. So I think it's one of those things that sounds great, but at the end of the day, you're kind of putting the onus on the employee to say, I'm going to sift through all of these, try to understand them myself. put my credit card in, and it just doesn't feel like something that's being done for them. It just feels like it's something that is there.

Kristie Cook: Okay, I'm glad you picked up on that. Now that you mentioned the Benefit Hub and other discount programs, I was able to discern what the question was asking. That's a great question. Yeah. I agree. A one-stop shop is just that, but is it really, right? So, I don't know. I've even had that come up where I rented a car, and then after the fact was like, oh, I have a discount program. Like, it didn't really resonate, you know? to your point, Aaron, versus being part of the overall benefit package is more tangible, I think, to employees.

Aaron, at UPC, do you guys have it set up, or have an option for direct payroll deductions for your employers that offer these plans?

Aaron Oaks: We do, yeah, so we are primarily a payroll deduction benefit, and just because of the flat pricing, we try to make it as easy as possible to facilitate that. We do offer a direct bill option as well, no, understanding that some employers may not have the ability to facilitate payroll deductions. The rates are a little bit higher, just because, you know, we… incur some cost on our side, and the participation rates tend to be lower, but we do offer both options.

Kristie Cook: Okay, good to know. I think, I could make an argument either way, but I think from an employee's perspective, it's nice to have that payroll deduction out of sight, out of mind. I know my rate's not going up, you know, unless you make a significant investment into the offering, but, and to me, in my experience, that's a lot simpler to administer versus a fluid individual plan setup where it's just constantly changing. It's very hard to get that right. If you are interested in payroll deductions, you want to look for a carrier like Aaron's UPC that, keeps those rates essentially constant.

Okay, great questions, guys. Feel free to drop in any others. One… one item I want to talk about that we didn't hit on is compliance.

So, from your vantage point, Aaron, are there any unique compliance, legal, or regulatory concerns for pet benefits compared to all of the other very nuanced voluntary benefits available?

Aaron Oaks: Oh, that's a great question. I… so I would say it is… from a pet insurance perspective, it is state by state. In general, most states have not provided particularly onerous disclosure requirements or, you know, things like that, but they are starting to. And honestly, I think it is a very good thing from a consumer perspective, because there are a lot of plans where the language is not clear, it's not certain what you're getting. So now, boy, off the top of my head, I think Rhode Island, Oregon, there's probably 6 or 8 other states that have come up with these standardizations.

In terms of requirements for, pet, you know, for pet insurance and what needs to be disclosed for the consumer. From a broker perspective, you do have to be property and casualty licensed, to sell the pet insurance product as well. But, and then for all the rest of them, there really is not… from a discount plan standpoint, no regulations, no kind of considerations or compliance. It does not require… the category does not require to be filed from a Form 5500 perspective, so there's no additional filings or anything like that.

And then the telehealth, actually, it depends on the provider. So, you… if you're prescribing, there are some requirements in terms of establishing an in-state relationship or in-person relationship. Again, that varies state by state as well. The provider that we partner with, we really focus on triage and some of the things that can be done across all 50 states, so that you don't have to worry about that. So yeah, I'd say these are really good questions that you should push your broker if you're, you know, asking about to make sure you're not stepping into something, or that you know what the risks are. But in general, compared to other categories of voluntary benefits, the regulatory burden is pretty low.

Kristie Cook: Yeah, you answered that much better than I could. It's definitely not as complex as some of our other health-related benefits, but still has its own state nuances, so that's really good to know. We have a question from Kim asking, does UPC integrate with BambooHR?

Aaron Oaks: Good question. We have built out integrations. We do not have an out-of-the-box integration with Bamboo HR like we do with Employee Navigator and Ease and some of the others, but we do have the ability to build ourselves out within Bamboo HR and pull files down.

Kristie Cook: Do you have a one-page or a white page that Aaron speaks to what systems you do have integrations with, or is… are your out-of-box options limited to ease and Navigator?

Aaron Oaks: We do, actually. We've got a one-pager, and I will say, actually, that's the norm. So we… the majority of our integrations, we can integrate with every BenAdmin system, or every major Ben Admin system, but we don't have the kind of out-of-the-box with most. We have a white paper, and we also have it on our website listed as well, but one of the things that I've found is there are a couple systems that are holding out.

And still charging clients for them, but really the vast majority now, especially with our product, because the integration is so simple, because we're not asking for lot of information. That is generally cost-free to the employer.

Kristie Cook: In terms of the file integration?

Aaron Oaks: That's right, yep, in terms of setting.

Kristie Cook: don't… you don't need… you don't even necessarily need breed or age, right? You don't need… all the demographics where we have a census that's 42 columns wide, it's much simpler.

Aaron Oaks: Yeah, that's right. Okay. One thing, Christy, actually, just to… your question triggered a thought. Just to clarify, this is a post-tax benefit. That is a question that comes up. Our lobbying arm hasn't quite made its way, you know, all the way into Washington to get that as a pre-tax benefit, although there is some legislation that's been introduced to make pet-related expenses, certain pet-related expenses, HSA and FSA eligible. So for those that are curious, as of right now, it is a post-tax benefit, but that may be changing. Certainly feels like something that may get bipartisan support. Again, back to the marketability of puppies and kittens, everybody wants to go back to their constituents and, and claim that win. But as of today, it's a post-tax benefit category.

Kristie Cook: I'm so glad you brought that up. So yeah, it's not going to be on your 5500 forms, because it's post-tax, but I love the idea of some pre-tax benefits for pets. That's awesome. I'll have to keep my eye out for that one, Aaron.

Aaron Oaks: Yeah.

Kristie Cook: Any other questions, Guys, we really, really appreciate you joining. Feel free to drop them in as I'm kind of wrapping up here. But really appreciate your time today. Hope you were able to get a snack or get lunch during this time. I hope the information was helpful. We do have a pretty regular webinar series here at Nava, so watch out for that on LinkedIn. Keep your eye out for what's next here. We really try to pick topics that are meaningful. and timely, and always appreciate folks joining. So tomorrow, again, we will send out the slides as well as the recording, so feel free to listen to that and share it amongst your peers. And we really just hope you have a great day, a great week, and hope your fluffy friends are doing well today. I'm going to take a quick break and take mine for a little short walk, and I hope you can as well. But Aaron, thank you so much for joining us.

We really appreciate having you and UPC here with us today.

Aaron Oaks: Thanks for having me, Christy and Autumn, and thanks, everybody, for joining.

Kristie Cook: Have a good day.

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