Top Pet Health Insurance Websites
Online Sites Where Consumers Can Buy Dog and Cat Healthcare Policies
Nov 11, 2009
In the past, pet healthcare insurance for dogs and cats was sold mostly thanks to marketing brochures displayed in veterinarian offices or via referrals from the pet owner’s neighbors and friends. As part of paperless marketing initiatives, many pet health insurance policies are now sold online. This article compares and ranks the online traffic for 6 of most popular U.S. pet health care websites.
Most Popular Websites for Dog & Cat Health Insurance
Below are the online pet healthcare portals that receive the most monthly visitors. The monthly estimates shown were averaged over a 3-month period ending November 10, 2009.
- Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) … 248,000 monthly visitors (up 12% in latest 3-month period)
- Pets Best Insurance … 94,000 monthly visitors (down 7%)
- PurinaCare Pet Health Insurance ... 93,000 monthly visitors (up 38%)
- 24PetWatch … 50,000 monthly visitors (up 3%)
- Petshealth Care Plan … 15,000 monthly visitors (up 20%)
- American Kennel Club (AKC) Pet Care Plan … 6,400 monthly visitors (down 40%).
The largest competitor, Veterinary Pet Insurance, is owned by Nationwide Insurance. VPI’s website has a quick quote calculator for instant online rates for pet dogs and cats. Marketed as America’s oldest and largest pet insurer, VPI also sells pet insurance for birds and exotic pets such as lizards, snakes and mice.
Leading Pet Health Care Insurers Now Online
Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, Pets Best Insurance’s website features an instant online quote calculator based on zip code.
PurinaCare Pet Health Insurance is licensed in 47 states plus the District of Columbia. This website has a no-obligation quote feature that enables users to easily price specific components of available pet insurance plans.
In addition to a secure online quote feature, 24PetWatch’s international site has a drop-down list where users can link to pet insurance plans offered to residents of the United Kingdom or Canada.
The Hartville Group is the parent company that owns the Petshealth Care Plan website, and has a partnership with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA). In addition to a free online quote calculator, the Petshealth Care Plan site also provides a link to a member center where pet health claims can be tracked.
The American Kennel Club site does not offer online quotes, but does display an ad for a complimentary 60-day health care plan that covers up to $1,500 in veterinarian bills.
Top Pet Health Insurance Websites for Search Engine Traffic
Veterinary Pet Insurance attracts the most monthly visits from search engines. VPI may rank higher on search engine result pages because of the over 600 external sites that link to VPI’s home page.
- Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) … 296,000 monthly search engine visits (35.5% of total)
- Pets Best Insurance … 45,000 monthly visits (21%)
- PurinaCare Pet Health Insurance ... 40,000 monthly visits (20.7%)
- 24PetWatch … 29,000 monthly visits (15.3%)
- Petshealth Care Plan … 5,000 monthly visits (17.3%)
- AKC Pet Care Plan … 800 monthly visits (5.6%).
In contrast, the American Kennel Club home page has only 28 sites that link in, and lags in the number of monthly visits that originate from Internet searches. These low online scores may be due to the fact that the AKC is more focused on local and regional membership drives than on marketing pet health insurance to non-members via the Internet.
Best Pet Healthcare Websites for Page Views
Veterinary Pet Insurance’s website also generates the most overall page views. This is partly because each online visitor stays on the VPI site to view an average of 3.4 pages, well above other competitive websites except for 24PetWatch’s home page. VPI’s free and easy-to-use online quote feature also encourages multiple page views per visitor.
- Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) … 835,000 monthly page views (average 3.4 page views per user)
- Pets Best Insurance … 215,000 monthly page views (2.3)
- PurinaCare Pet Health Insurance ... 195,000 monthly visits (2.1)
- 24PetWatch … 188,000 monthly page views (3.8)
- Petshealth Care Plan … 27,000 monthly page views (1.8)
- AKC Pet Care Plan … 13,000 monthly page views (2.1).
Educational pet health articles and tips are prominently featured on the VPI website – another competitive advantage that drives online traffic to the leading pet health insurance portal.
Top Scores for Veterinary Pet Insurance Website
Of the six pet health insurance sites reviewed in this article, Veterinary Pet Insurance’s website receives the:
- Most monthly visitors (248,000)
- Highest percentage of monthly page views originating from Internet searches (35.5%)
- Maximum monthly page views (835,000) once visitors arrive at the pet insurer’s home page.
These results indicate that VPI attracts the leading market share both for Web users looking for pet health insurance coverage as well as repeat customers wanting to log into to their existing online accounts.
Sources
This article provides independent calculations and insights based on data from the leading Internet traffic monitoring site, Alexa. The above statistics were estimated using a comparative benchmark of 24 million monthly visitors to the Suite101 website averaged over the past 3 months. Figures were rounded up to facilitate comparisons. In the case of PurinaCare, statistics were adjusted after more accurate source data was provided to the author.
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