Business View Magazine | July 2019

78 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 In 2014, Pethealth was acquired by Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, a financial service holding company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, which, through its subsidiaries, is engaged in property and casualty insurance, reinsurance and investment management. Since then, the company has remained focused on long-term profitable growth in its existing lines of business through both organic growth and acquisitions. This included the acquisitions of Pets Plus Us and PC Financial Pet Health Insurance portfolios to grow the insurance business in Canada as well as Chameleon Inc., North America’s second largest shelter software provider, to further Pethealth’s commitment in this area. Today, Pethealth’s 420 employees across Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., are focused on building out the business for the future, guided by their mission to “Bring vitality to lives furry and otherwise.” Recently, Business View Magazine spoke with Michelle Cole, Chief Marketing & Sales Officer for Pethealth about the history and diverse services of Pethealth Inc. Cole notes that the pet health insurance industry itself is rather young - only a couple of decades old in North America - and Pethealth has been around since the beginning. “Today, in North America, Pethealth is a leading provider of animal management software that is used by animal shelters, municipal shelters and rescues,” she reports. “We’re also a leading provider of RFID microchip identification, pet recovery services, and, of course, health insurance for dogs and cats.” Following many years of acquisition and expansion of service offerings, the company now has its eye on the future. “Recent estimates peg the number of household dogs and cats in the United States and Canada at 200 million. And that number is expected to grow,” she explains. “We’re in the business of helping these existing and new pet parents care for their new family members. So our focus now is on creating more customized offerings to meet their evolving needs and desires.” With a solid mission and dedicated employees in offices across North America and the U.K., Cole believes Pethealth is well positioned to do just that. “We’ve got a strong team in place to deliver on our goals; combined, our leadership team has over 70 years of pet health insurance experience and the overall Pethealth employee team has over 250 years of animal shelter experience,” she notes. “We’re here to help shelter pets find their forever homes and help pet parents keep their pets healthy, safe, and secure.” When it comes to their go-to-market strategy, “We have a pretty unique approach,” Cole shares. “Yes, we have competition when it comes to software, pet insurance, and the microchips. But what sets us apart is how we bring these products and services together through our partnerships with shelters. We partner with about two-thirds of these brick- and-mortar shelters in North America by providing them leading software at a discount. This enables them to operate much more efficiently and focus on the life-saving work they do. In return, they implant dogs and cats with 24PetWatch microchips and offer a complimentary trial insurance to all of their new pet adopters.”