Everybody loves pets — at least I do, and I have plenty ofcompany. But can an independent agent make money from them? Basedon demographics, it seems like a definite “yes.”

Consider these facts:

• According to the American Pet Products Assn.'s 2009/2010 National Pet Owners Survey, 62%of U.S. households (71.4 million homes) own a pet, which equates to71.4 millions homes. In 1988, the first year the survey wasconducted, only 56% of U.S. households owned a pet. While dogslead the pack at 45.6%, other pets include horses, fish,reptiles and “small animals” (probably nasty varmints likeferrets).
• While pet spending may not be recession proof, it is “recessionresistant”: Americans are actually spending more moneyon all these pets: the survey above estimated the 2010number at $47.7 billion — more than the GDP of countries including Tunisia, Croatia andEcuador!
• According to Small Business Trends, the U.S. pet insurancemarket has gone “mainstream,” at about $332 million in premiumin 2009, up from approximately $272 million in 2009 (a 22%increase) an expected to reach $400 million in 2010.
• Pet medical care has become almost as sophisticated as that ofhumans. According to MSN Money, the average cost of medical careover the lifetime of a pet can run between $2,000 and $6,000 (ohhell no…I'm here to tell you that's a drop in thebucket — check out my earlier blog post on dog surgery).

Program administrator NIP Group is betting on pets. Its new PetPro program covers the entire gamut of pet-relatedservices — not just the typical professional liability and businessrisks of vets, but all the ancillary services as well: hospitals,labs, dog walkers and groomers, doggie day care, evennot-for-profit animal shelters and rescue organizations.

The program, which launched this month and is currently beingwritten in 46 states, was designed with input from NIP agents, whosaw the need for a one-stop program for pet-related exposures, saidKelly Spencer, PetPro program manager. ”We built this from theground up for this industry because we wanted to be the placeto look for pet care professionals; from small businesses likeone-person dog walkers through multistate animal hospitalassociations with hundreds of employees.”

Besides the undeniable growth of the business segment, NIP CEORichard Augustyn was also instrumental in developing theprogram. He is involved in pet rescue organizations, andbelieves in the need for such a product. Kelly was brought into thepicture because of her background as a veterinary technician, amongother pet-related job descriptions.

NIP turned to its agents as the experts in the area, Kelly said.“A number of them specialize in insuring vets for professionalliability coverage, but they saw more smaller businesses croppingup that no one would have thought of.” Dogsitters, for instance:“Many of them don't recognize that they need coverage, but thereare plenty of exposures in the field that they need coveragefor.”

And although a single dogwalker or two doesn't make for bigbusiness, the fact that PetPro bundles all related pet coveragesmakes it less labor intensive and more profitable for the agent.And because many pet businesses are combinations — many doggie daycare businesses also do grooming, training and boarding — using theNIP program eliminates the need for the agent to get severaldifferent insurance policies with different ex dates. “Brokers areexcited about fact that complex businesses can be handled in oneplace,” Kelly said.

Best of all to animal lovers, PetPro also mains the PetProCharitable Fund (check it out on Facebook), in which a portionof the program's proceeds go to fund animal welfare causes.

So can an agent make money on pets? What do you think?