CRIF launches new real-time pet insurance service in the UK

Pet Check helps insurers validate pet details – including age, breed, sex, species, breed, pre-existing conditions – and assess risk more accurately, leading to more competitive premiums and a better customer experience for pet owners.

Pet Check is a hybrid solution that can be integrated with existing systems via API or accessed through an easy-to-use app. It provides insurers with a broader, more accurate understanding of what insuring a pet could entail, helping to improve the loss ratio in the policy underwriting process and effectively addressing the risk of potential underwriting fraud and misrepresentation.

Pet insurers face increasing pressure due to a 28% increase in claims in 2022 despite rising living costs. Pet insurers have slowly adopted enriched third-party data, but CRIF’s Pet Check aims to solve this by leveraging new data to maintain and grow market share.

Sara Costantini, regional director for the UK & Ireland at CRIF said: “Insurers appreciate these are tough financial times for many pet owners. They are committed to providing policies priced appropriately and giving people peace of mind. Pet Check will help them to avoid making a dog’s dinner of the risk assessment process.”

Pet Check also enables insurers to drill down to the finer details, permitting the underwriting team to assess any discrepancies found with the pet’s owner early in the policy lifecycle, ensuring the policy is underwritten according to the true risk involved. This early detection enhances the customer experience by reducing disputes with genuine customers later at the claim stage.

The solution is specifically designed to support a hybrid approach for insurers looking to minimise the API integration effort. Whilst pet information is automatically submitted via an API, further analysis is possible through an easy-to-use app.