Celebrating our partnership with the NZ Veterinary Association

In 2018, Southern Cross Pet Insurance partnered with the New Zealand Veterinary Association Te Pae Kīrehe (NZVA) to help the pets of New Zealand live their best life possible.

As a Diamond Partner, we’ve worked closely with the NZVA on a number of projects over the years. Because we’re both committed to making a difference for NZ pets, one of our first projects was to help raise awareness of the benefits of pet insurance for cats and dogs and how it can result in better outcomes for animals. It’s something we’re continuing to work on to this day.

Many New Zealanders are loving and committed pet owners and want to give their cats and dogs the best possible care in every situation. But without pet insurance, the cost of treatment can be a significant barrier for some families.

Dogs and cats have accidents and illnesses just as we do. Taking out insurance to cover treatment costs can make all the difference when they need extensive or complex procedures and medications.

Our insurance team sees countless examples of this every week.

There are pets like Chewie, an adventurous Border Cross Heading Cross who escaped from the backyard and was hit by a car on the busy road outside. Chewie needed emergency surgery and weeks of care to fix his dislocated hip and fractured tail, but his family says, “the fact that we were insured with Southern Cross took all the worry away.”

And mischievous kittens like Rosie who spent weeks in a cast after he fell and fractured his leg while play fighting with his brother.

But despite New Zealanders having one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world, we have lower-than-average pet insurance rates, although this is beginning to change. Key to this is working together to help raise awareness of pet insurance as a useful and valuable option for pet parents to consider for their beloved dogs and cats.

Educating pet parents

Beyond educating pet parents on the benefits of pet insurance, we’ve also worked to raise awareness of food safety.

Southern Cross research conducted with TBWA¹ showed that 68% of dog owners and 47% of cat owners had fed their pets human food. While some foods are okay for pets, some everyday foods and ingredients can be dangerous to our pets’ health.

With the help of experts from the NZVA, we created Paws Off!, a warning symbol that helps people see ingredients that aren’t good for our pets’ health.

The team have also worked closely with us on informative articles for our customers, helping us to educate as many pet owners as we can with accurate information about foods that are safe – and not safe – for our pets.

Sally Cory, the current Head of Veterinary Services (Companion Animal) at the NZVA, is helping us take this to the next step with ‘Pet Mind Control’ – a closer look at how dogs use their eyes to ‘trick’ us into giving them food.

As well as feeding into articles for our customers, Sally has been working with our product team to help ensure that Southern Cross Pet Insurance offers the best cover for cats and dogs.

Giving back

The NZVA has been an essential partner in our mission to help the pets of New Zealand live their best lives.

Because they and veterinarians like Sally work so hard to care for and improve the lives of pets, we wanted to give back.

Although veterinarians are one of the most trusted professions in the world, some misconceptions still pervade. These misconceptions, along with short staffing and overworking (particularly since the pandemic), have led to high levels of burnout and compassion fatigue in the industry.

That’s why we teamed up with some key industry leaders, including the NZVA, to launch Your Vet Cares in 2022. The campaign aims to help pet parents better understand their veterinarian and offers a platform through which to say thank-you to veterinarians and to share our appreciation for all they do.

It’s been more than five years since Southern Cross Pet Insurance became a proud Diamond Partner of the NZVA. We’re thrilled to continue the partnership and to keep working together to help improve the lives of pets and humans in New Zealand.

¹Research conducted by Pure Profile for TBWA and Southern Cross Pet Insurance 2023.