EMBRACE PET INSURANCE
A Lesson in Persistence
Bruce R. Barringer
Oklahoma State University
R. Duane Ireland
Texas A & M University
JOEY
JACK
HUNG
AARON
陳清水 MA1N0207
阮陳福 MA1N0214
黎阮維雄 MA1N0204
林志聰 MA1N0237
Agenda
 Case study
 Discuss questions
 Question 1
 Question 2
 Question 3
 Application questions
 Question 1
 Question 2
Case Summary
 2003, L. Bennett, A. Krooglik and two classmates won the prestigious Wharton



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Business Plan Competition.
PAWS Pet Health Insurance, a plan based on the idea of providing health insurance
for dogs and cats.
Forming a Real Business
Determine price fair and reasonable
Find a partner – an insurance company that would take the risk
Partner with Lloyds of London
Differentiate itself by offering high service quality
Discuss Questions
Question 1
What extent do L. Bennett and A. Krooglik’s founding and development of
Embrace Pet Insurance reflect each of these characteristics?
Question 1 (cont.)
 Passion for the business
-Pet insurance in the US : consumers had very limited choices for coverage =>
need a solution => a business idea coming up
-Winning the competition => this is absolutely a good idea + financial support
Product/customer focus
-Passionate advocates for fair and reasonably priced pet insurance
-Don’t follow lower premiums strategy but restrict pet care and further limit reimbursements
=> focus on service quality

“How a company treats its members when they file a claim is the true test of a
pet insurance company”
Question 1 (cont.)
 Execution Intelligence
-Offering customized insurance – offering numerous choices for coverage versus
premium and deductible
-Calculating its reimbursements on whether a member’s vet charged a “reasonable and
customary” fee rather than on a set reimbursement schedule
=> Embrace differs itself from most pet insurance companies
 Tenacity despite failure
-After the deal with the insurance company was off => they felt despondent, didn’t know
where to turn for several days => discussed, regrouped and started seeking out
other possibilities
Question 1 (cont.)
 The ability to learn and iterate
 Every idea for a business counts, for Embrace, they have experience a bad start with almost
everything that they think they have to do, but as soon as they learn that the path (finance
company, accounting ) that they are taking is no longer a choice, they created a new path,
which lead them to a good beginning.
Their cat
got sick
$5,000
No choice
to avoid
$5,000
$25-$50 /
month
Question 2
 We believe that Embrace Pet Insurance’s basic business idea “adds value” to the lives of
its customers, because American people treats their pets as their sons or daughters and
Embrace provides American people a good quality pet health insurance with
reasonable price and flexible choices for coverage.
 Those American older people will be the potential customers, because
 Tend to spend more on their pets-and the population was aging.
 Consumers had limited choices for good quality pet insurance at that time
 US market (2003-200 million), but should be 6 billion (7 million dogs and 90 million cats
with less than 0.5% of those insecure + 2/3 of US household had a dog or a cat)
Question 3
The occasions in the development of Embrace Pet Insurance in which Bennett and Krooglik’s tenacity
and resolve to make the business work were tested the most
Insurance
Company
Insurance company
did not want to take
the high risks (out
of their field)
JumpStart
Non profit
venture fund
Lloyds bank
Question 3 (cont.)
 Determining the most reasonable price, they tried to find companies that sells pet
insurances, unfortunately the task is never easy. Other reasons will include the consumers
data privacy. In each stone rejected, they finally found a source, they are enable to
convince a vet clinic to let the access they’re pricing data.
 Finding a well financed insurance company to take on the financial aspect of
they’re business.This time Bennett really broke down, they are finding difficulties to
find a firm that will support they’re business, it took them one year to find Jumpstart (a
non-profit venture fund) and later they found Lloyds of London both as a business partner
and a friend.
 Advocates for fair and reasonably priced pet insurance => “Premium brand” good service
quality without any restrict pet care or further limit reimbursements => making the
difference with all competitors
Question 4
Embrace's Core Values ???
=> http://www.embracepetinsurance.com/about-us/core-values
Golden Rule: “Customer is always right”
As a business, wowing a customer is the first priority, for Embrace company, they
provide customer with right satisfactory and give them more than they expect.
Question 4 (cont.)
 Focus on customer care
• Share a personal responsibility to maintain our pet parents' loyalty & trust
• You have the right to a 30-day money-back guarantee
 If they did not use insurance , they can get back money
APPLICATION QUESTIONS
National Chengchi University (NCCU)
IMBA Business Plan Competition
 how to help other entrepreneurs and boost this spirit around the island?
Conducting a Business Plan Workshop where participants could structure their
ventures and learn best practices to make those ideas come true
• Business Plan Boot Camp: training the participants to create systematic thinking habits
and through evidence-based business planning in a 10 weeks of hands-on workshop =>
tackling a real world problem
• Business Plan Competition: provided valuable feedback by the judges, faced off for a
chance to win prizes totaling up to NTD 180,000
What started off as a dream, has finally come true. It
has been a long journey, however, looking back, it has
well been worth the effort !!!
Question 1
Multiple Points of Feedback
• The insight provided by judges of business plan competitions
=> great value
• Enriching experience and ensures that the foundations of the
plan are grounded in reality
Networking Opportunities
• An attractive benefit for certain inexperienced entrepreneurs
lack not only the finance but also the presence, credibility and
networking capabilities of more experienced mentors
• Network with teammates, professors, judges and other
entrepreneurs
Working Towards Goals
• If you don’t hit your numbers this month, you can easily adjust
them for next month. However, when you’re presenting and
competing, those goals have to be set in stone
Question 1 (cont.)
Do you think Embrace Pet Insurance would exist if they had not
entered an early version of Embrace’s business plan into their
college’s business plan competition ???
Question 1 (cont.)
Successful Entrepreneurship Is Not About Winning A
Popularity Contest With Venture Capitalists
Question 2
My most passionate area: AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
Question 2 (cont.)
Automobile Industry in Vietnam
 Facts and figures:
•
Vietnam’s GDP per capita (nominal) is nearly 2.000 USD in 2013 while
Indonesia, Thailand are around 3.500 USD and 6.500 USD in 2013 respectively.
(Source: retrieved from IMF website)
•
However, car prices in Vietnam are so expensive compared to other
countries due to an undeveloped automobile industry and high taxes. Although
automobile industry has been started since 1995.
Question 2 (cont.)
Automobile Industry in Vietnam
 With below 10.000 USD, Vietnamese can not buy any new car but and Indonesian
will have so many choices. Thailand also give more options for their customer with
eco-cars which have the price below 15.000 USD. Even in Cambodia, they just
released “made in Cambodia” electric car in February 2014 with the price ranging
from 5.000 USD to 10.000 USD
Question 2 (cont.)
Automobile Industry in Vietnam
 My ideas:
• I want to create “Made in Vietnam” cheap car for Vietnamese
• It could be small size internal-combustion-engine-car or electric-car with the price
around 5.000-10.000 USD
• I could corporate with some enthusiastic professors from universities in Vietnam or
other countries trying to build the model with high localization rate for parts of the
car in order to reduce the price.
• Then we can continue to corporate with producers to develop the model into the real
products and distribute them into the market.
Question 2 (cont.)
Automobile Industry in Vietnam
 Challenges
• Our supporting industry is still weak so it is hard to have a high localization rate
automobile industry
• We also need to develop infrastructure (for example, building charging station) if we
have electric cars.
• We need to compete with products from other countries when the import tax for cars
in South East Asia countries will become 0% starting from 2018 due to AFTA trading
rule.
.