Trupanion and Your Pet's (Lack of) Privacy

When you take your pet to the veterinarian, the last thing on your mind is data privacy. Instead, you’re busy comforting your pet and ensuring they get the best care.

But behind the scenes, your pet’s medical information might be doing more than helping your veterinarian—it might also be feeding a patented data pipeline connected to one of the largest pet insurers in North America: Trupanion. Trupanion's data vacuuming software is used by more than 10,000 veterinarians. It gives the insurer access to medical data for all pets treated in those hospitals—not just the ones insured by Trupanion.

Trupanion is already using this data to raise rates and deny claims as "pre-existing", but it could easily become much worse. Many pet insurers are already penalizing customers who submit claims, charging certain pets 5x more. With this sort of data, insurers could charge pets more not just based on their submitted claims, but also based on visits and treatments never submitted or from before the pets even had pet insurance.

Doing so would require approval from regulators and become public knowledge, but there is an option for insurers who want to be more secretive. They can simply make it more difficult to get insurance in the first place. Is your dog overweight and more likely to need care? Rather than formally denying coverage or charging a different rate, both of which would typically need to be filed with regulators, insurers can just make it a hassle to sign up. They'll snail mail you a non-binding application. You'll likely choose another insurer or give up on pet insurance before it even arrives, but if you persist, they'll let the application sit in their office for days if not weeks before finally inspecting it with a fine toothed comb. Your i looks like an l? Sorry, we can't verify your information. Please re-apply.