TRUP - Trupanion

[Cigarbutt]

...

OTOH, for majority of the big ticket vet items, the solution is not pet insurance, but rather putting the pet to sleep. Yeah, I know I'm gonna get hit by compassionate pet owners again, but $5K for your fluffy could save at least 10 children in Africa. Or 10 healthy just born fluffies that are being put down every day.

I share your emotional detachment but this has had essentially 0% impact on my household concerning the number of pets or pet-related expenditures. 8)

Staying on an anecdotal level, a short while ago, a couple I know peripherally did not hesitate in funding an expensive knee reconstruction for their dog in order to allow the animal ('their baby') to limp along towards the end, all the while denting significantly their discretionary budget.

If you could build some kind of AI-like program that predicts family bonding with pets and propensity to pay (somehow) for vet services, you would look at the following demographic features: millennials, middle-aged couples with no or older kids, higher income and urban dwellers. These are favorable demographic features that will continue to improve and may even be recession-proof, at least to some degree.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-recession-proof-industry-you-can-count-on-pet-care-2019-07-02

 

FWIW, I think that offering the product, as much as possible from the regulation point of view, from the perspective of the veterinary office is the right one.

https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/Pages/190115a.aspx

[mcmaaaaath]

I think you underestimate how big a percentage of the population doesn't carry large savings and lives paycheck to paycheck for the most part.

 

If they live paycheck to paycheck, they should probably not have a pet.

 

OTOH, for majority of the big ticket vet items, the solution is not pet insurance, but rather putting the pet to sleep. Yeah, I know I'm gonna get hit by compassionate pet owners again, but $5K for your fluffy could save at least 10 children in Africa. Or 10 healthy just born fluffies that are being put down every day.

 

There are analogies to humans to. Why have health insurance? If you get sick, just kill yourself instead of paying that $20k bill. Then your wife can take the money and save 40 kids in Africa and humanity will be better off.

 

At the end of the day, pet owners do not give a fuck about your definition of morality. And so some of them are willing to pay $50-100 per month to maybe save a $5k or $10k bill later. It's really that simple. 

[rkbabang]

I think you underestimate how big a percentage of the population doesn't carry large savings and lives paycheck to paycheck for the most part.

 

If they live paycheck to paycheck, they should probably not have a pet.

 

OTOH, for majority of the big ticket vet items, the solution is not pet insurance, but rather putting the pet to sleep. Yeah, I know I'm gonna get hit by compassionate pet owners again, but $5K for your fluffy could save at least 10 children in Africa. Or 10 healthy just born fluffies that are being put down every day.

 

There are analogies to humans to. Why have health insurance? If you get sick, just kill yourself instead of paying that $20k bill. Then your wife can take the money and save 40 kids in Africa and humanity will be better off.

 

At the end of the day, pet owners do not give a fuck about your definition of morality. And so some of them are willing to pay $50-100 per month to maybe save a $5k or $10k bill later. It's really that simple. 

 

I agree with you, which is why I own TRUP, but me personally, I like my dog, but I would never pay $5k for a pet procedure.  $10K? that is just insane.  I don't need pet insurance, because I simply wouldn't pay for that kind of treatment.  I've had pets my whole life and neither my parents when I was young nor me as an adult ever paid thousands of dollars to treat a pet. You put the dog down and get another one.  If you have young children you use it as an opportunity to teach them about death and grieving.

 

[EricSchleien]

This rationale for selling from a former long investor was interesting.

 

https://intrinsicinvesting.com/2019/08/07/why-we-sold-trupanion/

 

His rationale wasn't very rational. You could do an hour of research and see that all of these "red-flags" really are a non-issue. But hey, that's what makes a market and my views are my own. I've been buying more and lending out my shares and getting about a ~5% yield on my position.

 

I wrote a little note about it on my blog with the Intrinsic Investing post as my inspiration. Of course, do your own research.

 

Post: https://www.gscm.co/blog/trupanion-slowing-growth-amp-issues-in-california

[The Investor]

I've owned TRUP for a few years now, bought most recently when it went to around $21-22.

 

With regard to the IRR on new pets, it would make sense to me to have a metric for IRR only on new pets that were acquired by marketing (so excluding member referrals and pets added by existing members).

 

That way you would get IRR on money spent, which IMO should not include new pets that would have been acquired anyway with zero spend.

 

Having statistics on progress to 'nirvana' and IRR on new pets exc. referrals/pets added by existing members more clearly separated would be nice.

 

I'd also really like to see more tables in the reports for reconciliation of all the non-GAAP metrics to the relevant items in the financial statements.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

[rkbabang]

Trupanion Rises 15% As It Is Set To Join S&P SmallCap 600

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/stock-alert%3A-trupanion-rises-15-as-it-is-set-to-join-sp-smallcap-600-2020-08-26