Rising Pet Insurance Costs: How UK Pet Owners Are Feeling the Financial Pinch

Now let's check in on the latest headlines from Europe and the Middle East with Polly Jean Harrison, features editor of the FinTech Times.

Hi, Polly and happy Friday.

Well, first, let's start out with a look at Adan.

Now the company has teamed up with prom to offer hotels a more seamless and also integrated payment experience.

So tell us more about this partnership and how you think it helps drive innovation in payments.

Good morning, Remy, and happy Friday as always.

So yeah, some really exciting news on the partnership front uh this week.

So with this new collaboration, Agent is planning on delivering a deeply integrated payment experience for hotels using Oracle Opera streamlining operations.

Reducing fraud and elevating the guest payment journey.

So Prom's platform is really enabling hotels to request and to collect secure, efficient and premium branded remote payments.

It's supporting features using like scheduled sends, automated reminders, file attachments, reporting and refund management.

So with a deep integration to Oracle Opera, the platform automates payment workflows, updates the guest photo in real time, and triggers email alerts on successful payments.

So this, as you can imagine, is a really exciting move for today's hospitality landscape, considering how, you know, delivering those smooth and secure customer service experiences and as a result of that payment experiences as well, being super essential to building that guests trust and driving loyalty.

So.

By partnering with Prompt brings together two complementary real strengths innovation in remote payments and a deep expertise in unifying Commerce to help deliver those the real impact for hotels with AEN.

So, you know, they're really empowering businesses to elevate the guest experience while driving that operational efficiency, all of which is great for the merchant, great for the hotels, and great for the consumer as well.

So this partnership will see the companies trying to benefit not only the hospital hospitality sector.

Sorry, but also industries like luxury retail, automotive, professional services, as well as builder builder merchants where prompt is streamlining B2B and payment flows.

So again, this is a really exciting partnership for the hotel space and a really good example about how like niche, uh, FinTech, and kind of these like smaller areas, it's actually really important to driving through the innovative payments and really helping provide a good experiences for customers.

So really exciting, great to see what comes next.

Yeah, and Polly, I do want to ask you about insurance for the furry members of our families.

I understand new research from insurance and credit information provider CRI shows that pet owners in the UK are now the most likely in Europe to report that their pet insurance costs are at all-time highs.

So tell us more about this research and how rising prices are adding to financial pressures.

Absolutely.

So yeah, this is a big one for everyone who has dogs and cats and any other furry members of the family like you say.

So Criff have found that 39% of Brits have reported their pet insurance costs have skyrocketed.

Uh, and this is particularly in the UK, but across Europe it has gone up 29% with a sharp increase in the price of pet policies in the last three years.

So as a result, 4 in 10 Brits with pet insurance say that they're.

Costs are now the highest that they've ever been, more than double the average across the rest of the continent.

You know, I think this is a big worry for a lot of people, I guess, with, you know, the cost of living crisis that we're still going and the economy not being particularly great at the moment, and, you know, I think definitely the rise of getting dogs and cats and other pets has really just boomed over the last few years.

So this is a major worry for a lot of people when it comes to having these pet insurance, and this pet insurance.

Prices in the UK have just really spiraled with premiums rising across the board, and this has been driven by a number of factors, including rising veterinary costs, lingering inflationary pressures, and a larger increase in claims.

So according to the Association of British Insurers, a record 1.23 billion pounds was paid out in pet insurance claims in 2024, which, you know, is an absolutely huge number.

So obviously, despite these rising costs, pet insurance is a huge priority for many, with, you know, we've always been a nation of animal lovers here in the UK and the number of pet owners is just continuing to rise.

So I think a lot of people are kind of really looking towards how to get the best value out of their policies, and you know, I think there's a lot of interesting areas that the insurance sector can help with this too, as unlike a lot of other areas of insurance, the pet sector seems a little bit less sophisticated when it comes to things like data analytics and the range of sources.

Draws on, so I think there's some potential here for FinTech to step in and really kind of help bring those prices down and getting innovative solutions that can really streamline these important processes such as fraud detection and in turn help with that pricing.

I think, you know, we're gonna see some great investment in these areas.

We already have some great um FinTech leaning insurance companies for pet insurance in the UK and I think we're gonna see a lot more to hopefully meet these needs of British pet owners and improve that customer satisfaction.

Well, Polly, we will have to leave it there but thank you so much for joining us on this Friday morning and have a great weekend.

Thanks Romy, I'll see you next time.