You might find this hard to believe, but a sizeable number of Australians which have pet insurance cover don’t have private health insurance for themselves. In percentage terms, this means every one in three people (or 33%) currently holding a pet insurance policy don’t have private health cover.

The unexpected finding comes from research by DBM Consultants through its Consumer ATLAS survey, an ongoing deep-dive into the many products and services used by Australians across insurance, banking and wealth management.

Whilst ATLAS found that those with pet insurance were more likely to have private health insurance, perhaps due to their heightened attitudes towards coverage for matters related to health and wellbeing, the key finding were those willing to forgo private health cover for themselves:

• The lowest incidence of private health cover was found amongst 18 to 29 year old pet insurance holders, with 46% of them going without private health cover.
• The next lowest take-up were 30 to 39 year old pet insurance holders, with 37% of them not having private health cover.