A Study On Pet Health Insurance And Its Impact On Owners Spending For Veterinary Services With Reference To Mysuru City

Abstract

Pet health insurance business has the potential to grow in India because of the higher number of pet adoption and the trend of pet-loving lifestyle, but it is unorganised sector in India because lack of awareness. The pet population is increasing in India, but access to veterinary care continues to be a concern. Affordability to pay for veterinary services is a challenge for some pet owners. The presence of pet health insurance is one tool that can help alleviate this burden. This paper estimated awareness and willingness-to-pay for pet insurance, veterinary visit and expenditure and driving forces behind dog owner choice regarding health care for their dog. The quantitative method with online questionnaire was conducted by focusing on the dog owners and 235 responses were collected in Mysuru region. Several tests were applied such as descriptive statistics, reliability test, factor analysis, correlation and regression, it was found that veterinary visit, expenditure, pet responsibility, and prevention of financial risk from pet adoption had a significant and positive impact on purchasing of pet health insurance. The result shows that 74% of dog owners were not aware of pet insurance, 75% agrees that veterinary cares are costly and causes financial stress and 88% of dog owners are willing to pay for pet health insurance. Findings from this study can help the pet health insurance company to build an effective marketing strategy that leads to effective growth in India. Further research should explore about reason to purchase pet insurance, what are the barriers of purchasing pet insurance and how it affects the pet owner behavior.