Cat Insurance…..

Long time readers will know that I sometimes choose a topic that’s not the “real topic.” It’s often a way for us to think about far deeper issues. For example, while I talk a lot about “relationship selling,” and the importance of human to human connection in selling and business, I’m also making a commentary on society, in general. When I talk about our eroding expectations, it’s not just on the customer service we have come to expect, but it’s also about the expectations we have of each other in the workplace, with our customers, in our communities, and societies.

Which brings me to write about “Cat Insurance.”

Cats have been a part of my life for over 40 years. In early parts of my life, it had always been dogs. But Kookie changed that.

I was terribly allergic to cats, she had two. When I visited her place, my nose started running, it felt like I had gravel in my eyes. I’d lay on the floor in her apartment with all sorts of fluids coming out of my nose and eyes. In her great sensitivity, she would always says, “Suck it up! It’s all in your mind, they’ve been with me longer than you have….” And cats became a very important part of my life.

And like humans and dogs, cats get sick. In the mid 80’s Sammy got very sick, requiring extensive and expensive treatment at the NY Veterinary Medical Center. At the time, the vet said, “There’s now medical insurance you can get for your pets, you may want to consider it.” Immediately Sammy and Damien got health care. The supplier was a niche insurance company. In addition, to covering almost all the surgeries and extraordinary treatments, they would send Sammy and Damien get well cards and treats. In the early 90’s, Sammy got cancer. The treatments were very expensive, but after about 18 months, she fully recovered. Most of her medical expenses were covered. She went into “maintenance care.” We never submitted claims, we didn’t think they were covered.

About six months into the maintenance program, we get a call from the insurance company. “Is Sammy OK, we just wanted to check….” We thanked her for the call, saying Sammy was doing fine. She replied, “Thank goodness, we know there are normally maintenance expenses for a couple years after the cancer treatment. We hadn’t seen any claims filed, we were worried about Sammy.” When we discussed the treatment with her, she said, “Please file all those claims and while she is being treated, keep filing them. We cover a large part of those.”

We were stunned by the call. The amount of money wasn’t huge, but the fact they made that outreach was overwhelming.

At that time, I looked at the health insurance programs we had in the company and the health insurance Sammy and Damien had. I thought, “Could I pass myself off as a cat? Their insurance is much better, plus vets always give them treats.” Doctors stopped giving me lollipops when I was about 8.

Over the years, and three generations of cats, we have noticed the service level and caring has plummeted. And the costs have skyrocketed. I’m now wondering if I can put Harley and Lita (the current generation) as children on my health care plan. I find myself paying more and more, getting less and less service. And no caring. Lita, recently went through a very serious condition. I almost lost her. There was a miraculous surgery, an extended hospital stay. A small part of the surgery and related care was covered. None of the hospital stay was covered. There have been follow up treatments every month since then, Lita is doing fine.

The experience with the insurance was different. Only about 30% of the costs were covered. I knew I’d have to pay the majority of the expense and had seen what was covered sharply decline over the years. I went to the website to see if it was covered, it was impossible to make sense of it. First they used differing codes for conditions than vets traditionally use. Then it was all “Greek/Latin.” I looked for some of the conditions the vets had written up, couldn’t find them. Looked for the words, “hospital stay,” couldn’t find that.

I sent an email to customer service. I got an auto reply thank you, saying they would get back to me. A week later I hear nothing.

I called the insurance company. Went through endless transfers and hearing, “there are only 50 people ahead of you.”

I finally got through to an agent. I reviewed all the claims I submitted, he explained the payment policies. I asked, “You used to cover these, why aren’t you covering them now?” He replied, “It’s just our policy, we need to make money.” I could tell he was getting impatient, apparently, I was taking too much of his time. I suspected he was measured on how many calls he handled and the 10 minutes I was spending with him were screwing up his metrics. I asked about the follow-up treatments. He said they weren’t covered. When I said, “The doctors say these are a critical part of this whole procedure…..” he replied, “Even if they are important medical procedures, we don’t cover them. Your cat is costing you and us a lot of money. You may want to think how much you want to spend on your cat….”

And that was it. The end of the call. And the cat’s name is Lita.

I’ve had the same insurance company since we started with Sammy and Damien, that’s about 35 years. The original company, very profitable, was acquired by a larger company, also, very profitable. That company was acquired by a general insurance company (also very profitable) to diversify their product portfolio.

I understand pricing increases for coverage. I understand changes in coverage, though it astounds me that so much of what used to be covered is no longer. They must grow and make a profit! All of us in business know the importance of being profitable (though it is a shock to many in SaaS).

And this post is not about Cat Insurance.

We need to build successful, thriving growing organizations. Profitability and scaling that is critical to the ability of any organization to succeed. And I work with dozens of organizations helping them accelerate their ability to build their revenues, profits, market cap.

But being profitable, growing, scaling is not incompatible with caring. Caring costs nothing.

In fact, if we cared a little more, our people, our partners, and customers might recognize it and be part of what we seek to achieve. And we might even seek to extend that caring into the people around us and in our communities. Imagine what might be possible.