Employers offer pet insurance to lure top talent

NEW YORK (FOX5NY) - Tim Bailey shares his lower Manhattan office with Zeek and Zadie, his two pet dachshunds.

"We as a company have from the very beginning pushed to be very pet-friendly," said Bailey, director of operations for Bond Collective, which leases shared office space to start-ups and other companies.

in addition to allowing pets in the office, Bond offers pet insurance to its workers.

"It was important to me to know if something comes up, I can have an option that isn't going to be really high out of pocket," Bailey said.

His benefit helped him save on a recent emergency room visit when Zeek jumped off the couch and made a hard landing.

"I was able to take him to the vet and get him the injection of steroids he needs to get better," Bailey said.

Greg Giangrande is the chief human resources officer at Time Inc., which just launched its own pet benefits product called Pet Hero.

"We recognize how important pets are to people," Giangrande said. He said that offering pet insurance and other pet-related benefits is a way for companies to attract and retain top talent.

"The bottom line for any benefit is: how do you think about employees holistically?" he said. "Because they feel like 'OK, my career has a purpose here and the company cares about me and understands there's more than what I do for work, and I have to balance all of that' and pets are a big part of it."

One in three Fortune 500 companies now offers pet insurance as a voluntary benefit to employees, according to Nationwide Insurance. A survey by Willis Towers Watson found that up to 60 percent of employers could offer pet insurance by 2018.