Pethealth 24PetWatch Database Surges to Over Seven Million

Pethealth 24PetWatch Database Surges to Over Seven Million

By: Tomas Ronolski - AllPennyStocks.com News

Thursday, September 5, 2013

The American Pet Health Insurance Association estimates that the pet insurance industry in North America is about $500 million and growing at a steady 13-percent-per-year rate. Seems like while American’s wrangle over who should be paying for healthcare, family pets are benefiting from people not having a problem opening their wallets for insurance. It would be a fair argument that at least that’s discretionary spending for one’s own house, not footing the bill for someone else. A facetious comparison, understand that most pet insurance policies are underwritten by property and casualty insurance, not health insurance. All that aside, people love their pets, often treating them as a part of the family, similar to a human. They want to make sure that they are safe, healthy and know there location should they stray from home; and they’re willing to pay for it.


Major retailers like Cabela’s Inc. (NYSE:CAB) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) have jumped on the pet wagon, offering consumers pet insurance.

A few years ago, there was only one company in the business, Veterinary Pet Insurance, which was founded in 1982 and still controls the bulk of the market. But, other companies have been popping up with the growing industry. Pethealth Inc. (TSX:PTZ) is one of those firms, now the second largest provider of medical insurance for pets in North America, operating in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. As far as Canada goes, Pethealth is the biggest provider of major medical insurance for cats and dogs.

Penetration in Europe seems to be a savvy move, with “about a fifth of pets” being insured in the U.K., according to a USA Today report in March 2012. At that time, only about 1 percent of Americans’ dogs and cats were covered by insurance.

Pethealth doesn’t offer just insurance, its portfolio also contains integrated health related information services. On Thursday, the company announced that it has now registered over 7,334,252 animals in 24PetWatch, its pet recovery database, representing 21-percent growth compared to August 2012. The company has bootstrapped 24PetWatch with its PetPoint Animal Management solution, a system that manages records of animals in the care of animal shelters, animal control facilities, and rescue and breed placement groups. More than 1,500 of these types of organizations are currently using PetPoint.

Using microchip technologies that has become extremely common today, 24PetWatch can locate lost pets in the system.

Pethealth showed 16-percent growth in its top line in the latest quarter, with revenue rising from $9.0 million last year to $10.48 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2013. Net profits sagged, however, from $1.47 million to $219,000 as the company dealt with more one-off expenses and stock-based compensation. The year prior quarter also benefited from a net tax asset of $1.03 million, compared to a tax expense of $99,000 in the latest quarter.

The company is certainly in a niche market, but it’s a healthy niche market that is growing at a strong pace. Shares of PTZ have doubled in 2013 at current levels of $1.60, rising 5.3 percent in Thursday trading at the lunch break.

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