Dressed dogs sit in a buggy at a pet show in Suwon, south of Seoul, on Nov. 27, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The most common illnesses that insured pets are diagnosed with at veterinary clinics in South Korea are gastritis/enteritis and conjunctivitis.
Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance Co., a South Korean non-life insurer, said Tuesday the number of pets insured by the company’s pet insurance product ‘Petpemint’ reached about 30,000 just two years after the insurance policy’s launch in October 2018.
The company’s cat-only insurance product, released in April 2019, has attracted about 3,000 pet cats.
Considering that as of 2019, there were an estimated 5.98 million and 2.58 million pet dogs and cats in South Korea, the subscription rate for Meritz Fire’s pet insurance products remains at less than 1 percent.
The data also showed that 78.1 percent of pet owners who subscribed to the company’s pet insurance products were under the age of 40.
The most common pet illnesses for which insurance money was paid to owners were gastritis, gastroenteritis and enteritis.
In terms of the amount of paid insurance money by illness, patella dislocation ranked first at 548 million won (US$497,700), followed by the ingestion of foreign material at 227 million won.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
