The Stretch – When Pets Are Family: Rethinking Employee Benefits with Airvet's Brandon Werber

Brandon Werber:
There are literally twice as many households with pets in the house than there are with children and that gap is growing.

Kevin Fyock:
We're gonna talk about why should it be part of a benefits package that an employer offers?

Brandon Werber:
So when a pet benefit actually removes barriers like cost and access and time, employees use it at rates that will eclipse almost every other benefit in a portfolio.

Kevin Fyock:
And we'll get into the importance of covering all pets as a member of a family.

Brandon Werber:
If your family employees consider a person, an animal, a cousin to be their family and what I consider their their nucleus, then that's the family and it's not for us to say what is a family and what's not a family.

Kevin Fyock:
So Brandon, welcome to The Stretch.

Brandon Werber:
Thank you for having me, Kevin. I'm excited to be a guest today.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah, I'm so excited to have you. Now obviously we've known each other for a little while and maybe before we jump in, a fun icebreaker. So tell me about your pets.

Brandon Werber:
So I am a very partial to bulldogs. I love the smushy face breeds. So English bulldogs, French Bulldogs, and then I love pugs too. They have a pretty special place in my heart. So the smushy face breeds. We are on our fourth French Bulldog right now. So, we had French Bulldogs way before they were popular. We've had them for about 25 years now. And I just you know, we've had other breeds too. Labs are amazing golden retrievers.

Kevin Fyock:
Yep. I find…

Brandon Werber:
And my my Frenchies just have a very special place in my place in my heart. There's just nothing like a Frenchie.

Kevin Fyock:
I love it. I love it. So I I think I've shared this with you, but I we have a golden retriever now. Prior to that we were a beagle family and my wife knows that if I could have it my way, I'd live on a farm with like I don't know, 30, 40 beagles and just have them run around the yard all all day. But, their noise isn't exactly great.

Brandon Werber:
They're known as the howlers. Howling breeds.

Kevin Fyock:
Yes, in fact actually, I just learned a stat or a comment, Beagle Pain Syndrome. It’s not real, but they are apparently dogs that experience pain differently than other any other breeds. Maybe we can get into that later in today's episode.

Brandon Werber:
Yeah. It's it it's like a man with a cold.

Kevin Fyock:
That's right. Yes, yes. Of which I have one now. Perfect transition.
So, Brandon, like I said, we we've known each other for a little while. I've been super impressed with what Airvet, what you've all done and how you're experiencing benefits, you know, on behalf of you know, sort of the extension of what a traditional family looks like. So why don't we start there? I would love your perspective on the definition of a family and how is that changing in the realm of benefits?

Brandon Werber:
Look, I think it's a great question, and it sounds like an obvious one, like what is a family? But the reality is families come, in my opinion, in all shapes and sizes. Sure, different makeup centered around what I believe it's it's just who we care for and who we care about. We don't get that answer by being prescriptive, we get it by listening.
We get it by following trends. Everybody would look at a family differently. Everybody has a different type of family. So, whether you're married with kids, married without kids, but you take care of elderly parents or somebody else in the family. I know my wife grew up in a huge family where all the aunts and uncles all took care of everyone else's kids. It was almost like a village. And for so many families, their pets, they either have pets and children, or pets and no children. And that's their family.

So, I just look at a family as like we listen. If your family employees consider a person, an animal, a cousin to be their family and what I consider their nucleus, then that's the family. And it's not for us to say what is a family and what's not a family.

Kevin Fyock:
Sure.

Brandon Werber:
It’s just for us to listen and be receptive to those differences.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah. So, Brandon, I love that. And I also, you know, my orientation in my role and throughout my career has always been the employee, right? And sort of the more traditional family and how that has, you know, touched benefits in so many different ways, things like family forming and fertility.
But I would love your perspective on how have employees, especially as you were bringing Airvet to market, how are they signaling that that pets really are part of the family? And it's sort of I won't say a deviation from the traditional family, but an expansion for how we define what a family is.

Brandon Werber:
Absolutely. So, I like to think of that always in like three buckets, right? How do we hear things? How do we see things? It goes back to trends and connecting dots. So, I've always kind of lumped it into behavioral, financial, and cultural.

Kevin Fyock:
Sure.

Brandon Werber:
Right. And the way employees need or ask for things, or as those things change, it's usually in one of those buckets. So, I look at behavior, for example, not not surveys, but what are they actually doing, right? So, they're burning PTO days to take a sick pet to the vet. Not because they forgot to plan, but because when a pet gets sick and we don't expect it, it really feels as urgent as having a sick child.

I have three boys who are six and under, and a fourth, finally a girl, on the way. And I remember the first time Mason, who's now six, who's my first, it was like 11 o'clock p.m. He had like a hundred and three point five, nearly 104.
And it was like I. It was absolutely manic. I didn't know who to call, what to do. I wanted to rush to the ER. My wife's like, calm down, like we let's just call the after-hours line. And so I called the after-hours pediatrician line, and you just get an answering machine, you leave a message, and in 40 minutes or so, like a doctor on call called back. But those 40 minutes, I mean it it felt like a lifetime.

Kevin Fyock:
An eternity. For sure.

Brandon Werber:
I was panicked the entire time. Yeah, it absolutely. And it was really no different. It's when when we're talking about our pets, right? When they're sick and we can't get care for them, we don't know if it's an emergency, should I be rushing to an ER? It really feels like that. So it feels urgent and it's all encompassing.

So they're going into financial debt over unexpected vet bills, they're distracted at work, losing sleep, and they're showing up just mentally checked out when something's wrong with a pet at home,

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah.

Brandon Werber:
and they don't have an exact care plan. So that's more of like the behavioral side of like what are we doing? What does it feel like when we have a sick pet? Some insane stats that most people don't even believe because it's so insane to hear. But US pet spending, so this goes into behavioral, cultural, and financial, is really what do people care about? Well what are they spending their money on? And that tells you what they care about.

And the US pet care industry. So, if without this context, if I were to ask you just what do you think we spend every year on our pets, what would you say?

Kevin Fyock:
Per family?

Brandon Werber:
Just just total in the US, US pet spend.

Kevin Fyock:
Oh my goodness. Like this is an interview question, Brandon. I would say the whole the the industry spends or you know, we collectively spend fifty million dollars.

Brandon Werber:
So a few years ago, we were at ninety billion a year.

Kevin Fyock:
Ninety billion?

Brandon Werber:
Ninety just in the US.

Kevin Fyock:
I was off by a few zeros.

Brandon Werber:
Just a few. Last year was about a hundred and fifty billion.

Kevin Fyock:
Wow.

Brandon Werber:
And by 2030, which is scarily only three and a half years away, it will be over two hundred and seventy-five billion dollars, and that's just domestically. So it's a quarter trillion dollar a year spend, and that spend is skyrocketing. So that goes to the financial side of what we're spending, the way we're humanizing our pets. And now, and some will laugh at this and some will say, Yeah, pet trusts are now legally recognized in all 50 states.

Kevin Fyock:
Wow.

Brandon Werber:
So people are leaving money and instructions for their pets and wills.
So that's pretty wild. And it just shows that humanization, right? How do we know that people consider their pets family?

And then the clearest signal from Airvet's lens is utilization. So, when a pet benefit actually removes barriers like cost and access and time, employees use it at rates that will eclipse almost every other benefit in a portfolio. So where are people spending their time? Where are people spending their money? And from a benefits perspective, the utilization tells the story if we’re scratching an itch or solving a pain point or not.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah. Well, hearing about pet trusts and people leaving money for their pets, I I I didn't realize I could actually think about being a financial manager just for pets. Like I could exclusively manage Beagle money. So maybe you and I can talk about that offline.

Brandon Werber:
Absolutely.

Kevin Fyock:
I love the thread that you were pulling on around sort of stress, because again, this is near and dear to my heart and sort of how we think about the holistic employees. So you talked about financial strain, you talked about anxiety. And it's so well put, right? Because the whole employee is how our clients, how employers throughout the United States really think about sort of enhancing the lives of of their members. And so, the extension it not just to mental health and EAP benefits, but but veterinary care is is sort of a fascinating way to look at it.
And I'll even share, you know, many of us have experienced pet loss, right? So, we previously have lost pets and it impacts you, right? And and the days, you know, after losing to your point, an extension of your family is it it it's very painful. And so, to being able to recognize that emotional stress and anxiety is a powerful thing for an employee to recognize and and their employer to support.

Brandon Werber:
I agree completely. And it's one of those awful inevitabilities of pet parenthood is, that what people always say is they're a part of our lives, but we are their entire life.

Kevin Fyock:
Sure.

Brandon Werber:
And knowing that at some point we're going to have to say goodbye is devastating. We actually are are unveiling both palliative care on Airvet and grief counseling.

Kevin Fyock:
Wow.

Brandon Werber:
Right. So when people are you know, asking the question, when do I know it's time to say goodbye? Right.
Because a lot of the time, not all the time, but a lot of the time, it's a decision we have to make, which is different. And knowing when to make it and how to make it and when it's time is one of the hardest decisions we will ever make as pet parents.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah.

Brandon Werber:
And being able to talk that through, not in a 15-minute vet appointment, but being able to talk to somebody for hours and multiple times if we need to until we're comfortable and confident, is it's a massive value add for for people emotionally.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah. Okay, well that Brandon, that's a great transition because we've established pets are part of family. It's very important for employers to sort of recognize how we can support, you know, members of of you know what the modern family looks like.
So why don't you tell us about Airvet? Like if you were to meet somebody on the street, how would you explain what you're all solving for?

Brandon Werber:
If I were talking to a a a pet parent on the street, I would describe it in just the simplest form of, you know, have you ever done a doctor's visit on on your phone, maybe during COVID, like a a teledoc or a doctor on demand, and almost everyone says, yeah, of course. We say, okay, we're we're Teledoc for pet families.

Kevin Fyock:
Okay.

Brandon Werber:
And you could talk to a vet 24/7 at the tap of a button. And the I think you might have said this when I first met you years ago and told you what it was.
Almost always the response we get is it's so obvious. Like why didn't I think of that? And it's funny, it does seem we have this for people. Why don't we have it for pets?

So, that's what I say is is what we do. It's it's Teledoc for pet families, and then we started adding more and more into it because we started hearing from employers time and time again that you know they wanted this to be more of a not a single point solution around telehealth, but all the things that encompass, you know, an online pharmacy, home delivery, savings on pet products, you know, discounts towards being a pet parent, palliative care, navigation for care, and all of these things. So bit by bit, you know, we started adding a lot. So now it's it's more of a comprehensive pet care platform as opposed to exclusively telehealth.

Kevin Fyock:
That's phenomenal.
So, Brandon, you had mentioned sort of going back to financial strain and anxiety and and clearly, you know, you're working to address, you know, things of of that sort of category. I think something that I like so much about your solution, especially as we compare and contrast it to other solutions that employers roll out in a benefits package is oftentimes, you know, they they impact the employer, right? You save money and there can be a benefit to the the employee. But I think your solution is is somewhat unique in that there are almost equivalent benefits to the employer as there is the employee. So can you help us understand a little bit more about like when an employee uses Airvet, what do they get? And when an employer rolls Airvet out, what results, what outcomes do they they sort of come to appreciate?

Brandon Werber:
It's it's really interesting. It it's really two sides of the same coin. So, we look at first and foremost, it is very expensive to live today, right? Cost of living is skyrocketing. We're seeing you know healthcare spend, this is just something that employers and employees are grappling with every day, the the cost of living. So, no different than in human health care. The cost of vet care.

So, when we think about financial savings, that will be two sides of the same coin. For the employee. The cost of vet care is up 40% over the last five years.

Kevin Fyock:
40%.

Brandon Werber:
40% over the last five years, double digits a year. The average emergency vet visit is now about \$1,500 to \$5,000, and people are paying it or going into debt to do so. Sixty percent of Americans don't have \$1,000 in savings.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah.

Brandon Werber:
So, when an unexpected vet bill or an emergency pops up, they are exhausting their savings and going into debt to do that, borrowing money from friends, family, and 96% of pet owners don't have pet insurance.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah.

Brandon Werber:
Right. So, these are all just huge expenses that are unexpected coming out of pocket and just people are financially spiraling because they're not gonna forego care, especially lifesaving care or urgent care for their pet. So, for the employer,
or for the employee, rather, being able to avoid those visits and avoid those unexpected expenses by being able to talk to a vet and treat a pet for free virtually in the vast majority of cases is massive.

For the employer, there's also a huge financial ROI because productivity and absenteeism, you know, I always say vets vets are a lot like Chick-fil-A, they're not open on Sundays. So about 90% of all vet visits happen during the work week. People take time off unexpectedly to take their pet to the vet, they're there for hours and hours, right? And typically they'll take a half day to a full day off. And if we can do 70 to 80 percent of all of those visits and make them virtual, and we're 24-7, so they can happen, you know, early in the morning, people can do it on their lunch or when they get home. It’s a huge savings around productivity and absenteeism, and the employee doesn't have to take that PTO day in order to do that.

So the financial side is that two-sided coin for sure. And then certainly on the emotional side, when our pets are incredibly sick or we're drowning in debt because we just paid a \$2,800 ER bill, that person's not showing up to work as their best self. So, being able to have focused, emotionally well and strong employees ready to do their best work and not thinking about how they're gonna pay their you know their best friend back for the \$800 they just lent them to pay that that unexpected vet bill, right? It has two really interesting sides of that coin.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah.

Brandon Werber:
That benefit the employer and the employee under the same categories of financial wellness, emotional well-being, but in different ways.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah, well again, I not to make this about me, but I'll make it about me. I've obviously used your solution and I can't agree with you more, right? Because we've had issues with the dogs in the past and even our golden now where they eat something they shouldn't have or they have a rash and you know, we could certainly go to our our vet, which we often do, and it it it's not a 15 minute event the way it is talking with you.

Brandon Werber:
Oh God, no.

Kevin Fyock:
It's a multi-hour event. And so the age old discussion around absenteeism and productivity is very hard to measure. But with this, it's not difficult to measure. It's actually, I think, very clear. You know how long it takes you to go to a vet, you know how much money you're spending. And when you can accomplish many things, you know, through the app setting or the technology setting that you all have, it happens a lot quicker. So, you know, I I have to imagine the conversations you're having with prospective clients, and then by extension, their members is one of you probably don't get a lot of pushback because they probably get it, especially if they're pet owners themselves.

Brandon Werber:
Oh, a hundred percent. And what's really interesting is very much like an Uber ride, right after your ride, you rate it out of five stars. We do the same thing. So after every Airvet visit, the employee gets the next screen will ask them point blank, did Airvet, did your Airvet visit save you from having to go in person? Yes or no.

So their employee, him or herself, is telling us if I didn't use Airvet, here's what I would have done. Sure. And then we can attribute a certain amount of time, of course, and a certain amount of money, both on an avoided visit for the employee and that absenteeism for the employer, and quantify those things, not based on network averages or an average of a study that was posted online about one thing or another, but your own employees who tell us if I didn't use Airvet, I would have gone in person and then we report on that. So it actually is much easier to quantify than a lot of than a lot of benefits out there today.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah, that's that's phenomenal.
So, Brandon, when I talk with some of the organizations that are on the podcast or even sort of throughout my career, a lot of these solutions we’ll talk about what their approachable market looks like and you know who could use said service. So from your vantage point, like what how many people have pets? Like how, what is your approachable market?

Brandon Werber:
It's you know it's it's the stats around this are are mind blowing and it kind of leads back to our conversation earlier around how do we know that pets are part of the family. And you just look at the sheer number of pets coming into homes every year and what that growth rate looks like. So yes, they come in all shapes and sizes, but there's a clear dominator as it comes to growth around what families are looking like today.

So for example, you look at humans, right? Birth rates are at historic lows. People are having less kids today than ever before in history, or they're waiting longer in life to have kids or choosing not to have kids at all, and they're getting pets instead.

So back in the 1980s and 90s, about 50 or so percent, a little over 50% of households, of families included pets. Today it's 70% of all households in the country include pets. And over the next three and a half years, that'll be 83%. So, there are literally twice as many households with pets in the house than there are with children, and that gap is growing. So when we talk about, you know, why should pets be included in you know a family support strategy or caregiving, it's because we're not talking about 18 or 20 percent of the workforce, right? We're talking about the overwhelming majority of the workforce and growing. And about 97% of all pet families said that they consider their pets to be a core part of their family. 97%.

Kevin Fyock:
Wow.

Brandon Werber:
Right. So, it goes back to listening. How do we know they're part of the family? Well, look at the growth rates and listen to them. They're literally telling us that their pets are part of the family.

Kevin Fyock:
Well and and it's amazing too 'cause you think about more traditional health focused benefits, for example, you know, only certain people are gonna have knee replacements or hip replacements, right? But you're talking about a level of universality that impacts so many people and so many families.

Brandon Werber:
Exactly. Exactly right. So when we think about the benefits, the financial stress, the emotional stress around caring for their pets or stress when we're not able to care for them or access care and we can alleviate that stress, we're not talking about a small segment. We're talking about nearly the entire workforce.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah, that's awesome.
Okay, so Brandon, I I think I've exhausted many of the questions I wanted to ask you. And and I hope our listeners have come to sort of learn a little bit more about what you're doing, because again, you all are doing super cool things. But there's one last question I'd I'd love to ask you.
What is the most surprising thing you've learned about maybe employees and their pets? I'm sure you have lots of fun stories that your clients have told you, but maybe what's the most surprising?

Brandon Werber:
You know, one thing I have found really surprising is there's a sentiment and I think maybe it's just because of the old guard of 25 years, what benefits for pet families have looked like and what options have been out there and how they've been delivered that we seem to have been like really accepting that like certain benefits are just low utilization and really low utilization.
And like somehow, because that's all that's been around, that the industry as a whole was just very accepting of like, oh yeah, pet benefits, you know, ours, we've had it for X amount of years. It gets 1% enrollment or less, but like that's what everybody gets. So, like that's we're we're at table stakes. I was really surprised that there weren't companies, people out there that were saying, hey, what does that tell us if 99% of the workforce is not using the solutions that we're offering? But then whenever we ask them what they want, in this case, they say they want pet benefits, so we roll out certain, you know, a voluntary pet benefit, let's say, and then nobody enrolls. But for 25 years we just kept launching it. I think I was really surprised that somehow everyone was just okay with that because that's that was the expectation.

And when we rolled Airvet out, we just the the delivery I think so different where it was employer paid so it's free for all pet families. So, we've removed all cost barriers and access barriers. We don't exclude anybody, right? So, there's no exclusions on one thing or another. It's all pets, not just cats and dogs. So, it's it's we've done iguanas, we've done a live birth of goats on Airvet. We do chickens, we've done a tarantula, bearded dragons, geckos.
Because like it kind of goes back to what you said before of like what's a family

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah.

Brandon Werber:
It's not for me to say if you have a cat or a dog you're a family and you get this great benefit for pet care but if you have a bearded dragon or a spotted gecko you're not a family and unfortunately you don't get access to a benefit for pet family. So, when we rolled it out it was from that surprise right and we said we got to do this differently and that's why the enrollment and utilization we see I mean in even in year one as an average is is double digits and for many clients set utilization records.
Like next to health insurance, for many clients, we're the highest utilized benefit they offer.

Kevin Fyock:
Yeah, that's amazing. And if our listeners click on the link below, you'll be able to see the birth of those live go… No, I'm just kidding. That must have been a really interesting process to watch. I have a million questions for you, but I won't I won't ask them.

Brandon Werber:
Luckily I have it. I didn't watch it, but it was a it was actually a two hour visit that went off.

Kevin Fyock:
Wow.

Brandon Werber:
Yeah, the doctor stayed on and walked them through delivering the goats for the entire delivery.

Kevin Fyock:
Wow, that is amazing. That is a great story.
I have. Unfortunately, no live goat births yet. But what 2027 has in store for me. It's mostly contact dermatitis and food allergies, which you have helped with both. So they've been fantastic.

Brandon Werber:
But you've used Airvet a couple of times, right?

Kevin Fyock:
I have. Unfortunately, no live goat births yet. But what 2027 has in store for me. It's mostly contact dermatitis and food allergies, which you have helped with both. So they've been fantastic.
So, Brandon, this was this was a ton of fun. I loved you know chatting with you as always, but more importantly, having our listeners learn a little bit more about Airvet and and what you're doing.

Brandon Werber:
Well, I appreciate you having me on and getting to share a little bit what we're so excited about and and supporting pet families. That is a passion of mine. I I grew up in a house with 15 cats and dogs and my dad's a veterinarian. So, this is very much a a labor of love and and getting to provide the same kind of unlimited care that I was always spoiled with, with my dad. I just picked up the phone, called my dad, never had to think about access or cost and it it I just wanted everybody to have that. So, it's been a lot of fun.

Kevin Fyock:
And you found a way to scale it. So again, thanks, Brandon. Appreciate it.

Brandon Werber:
Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin Fyock:
And that's it for this episode of The Stretch. As the workforce changes and expectations are rising, meeting people where they are means that benefits need to be more inclusive, flexible, and connected to everyday life.
Thank you so much to Brandon and the Airvet team, and thank you for listening.
As always, if you've enjoyed this episode, please follow The Stretch and share it with a colleague who's thinking about the future of benefits. We'll see you next time.