Why do pet owners so often learn the limits of their insurance when an animal is already ill and the veterinary bill is growing? That trust problem sits at the center of my conversation with Hedda Båverud Olsson, co-founder and CEO of Lassie, a pet insurer that combines coverage with preventative health guidance, rewards, activity tracking, and AI-assisted claims.
Hedda's reason for starting Lassie is personal. Her mother is a veterinarian, and Hedda grew up around healthy pets without fully appreciating how much fear and financial pressure many owners experience. After working at McKinsey and EQT, she became absorbed by an idea she describes as putting her mother in every owner's pocket. The aim was to help people understand risks earlier and make better daily choices, rather than waiting until an animal needed treatment.
The claims process shows where AI can offer immediate value. Lassie has developed a system called Bark Office that scans an invoice, reads each line, identifies whether the treatment relates to illness or an accident, checks the policy, and decides whether enough information is available. Hedda says that when the system is confident, the money can reach the customer in around six minutes. She reports that approximately 65 percent of claims in Germany follow that route.
Automation has limits, especially when a blurry receipt, missing diagnosis code, incomplete journal, unusually expensive treatment, or uncertain policy detail prevents a reliable decision. Those cases can prompt a request for further information or move to a human reviewer. Hedda says customers receive a line-by-line explanation of what was and was not covered, with the option to dispute a result and request another review. She reports an error rate below 2 percent for automated claims and compares it with what she describes as a 5 percent human error rate across insurance. Those are Lassie's figures, but the operating principle is useful across many regulated services: automate clear cases, explain the result, and give uncertain or sensitive cases to a person.
We also consider why an insurer should have a role when nothing has gone wrong. Hedda says over 90 percent of Lassie customers use its app and roughly a quarter use it daily. Owners can watch health videos, complete quizzes, follow life-stage guidance, record activity, and earn rewards that can reduce their insurance price. Advice changes according to breed, age, and season, covering subjects such as weight, joint health, toxic foods, nail trimming, and ticks.
Lassie also works with Tractive, allowing customers to connect a tracker and bring activity data into the app. Hedda explains that Lassie customers can receive a tracker while paying the Tractive subscription, and existing Tractive users can connect their current device. Owners who do not want a tracker can record activity manually. The feature gives the company another regular point of contact while helping customers follow their pet's routine.
That daily relationship has commercial consequences. Hedda says regular app use supports customer loyalty, reduces churn, and raises lifetime value. Preventative actions may also support lower prices for owners. The opportunity is to make insurance useful before a claim, although firms must avoid turning care advice and rewards into confusing conditions or allowing gamification to distract from clear coverage.
The conversation moves to the UK, where the supplied briefing estimates that around 20 million pets remain uninsured. Hedda believes culture and distrust may outweigh price alone, comparing the UK with Sweden, where she says approximately 90 percent of dogs and 50 to 60 percent of cats are insured despite higher prices. She also argues that established insurers have been slowed by old systems and disconnected technology, making simple onboarding, mobile service, and automated claims harder to deliver.
For Lassie, the test is knowing where automation improves the experience and where it would make a difficult moment worse. Customers may welcome an administrative claim completed in minutes, but few want to speak with a bot when a pet is seriously ill or dying. That distinction between speed and empathy may be the most useful lesson for any business automating emotionally sensitive work. Can insurance become something customers value every day without losing the clarity and human care they need during a crisis? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
Useful Links
Connect with Hedda Båverud Olsson
Learn More About Lassie
Follow Lassie on LinkedIn
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[00:00:27] Why do so many pet owners discover what their insurance does not cover at the worst possible moment? And what role could technology play in improving that experience? Well anyone who has faced an unexpected vet bill knows that speed, clarity and trust, these things matter when your pet is ill.
[00:00:56] The last thing you want to be doing is stressing about how you're going to pay for everything. And today I'm joined by the co-founder and CEO of Lassie. And we're going to examine how AI and preventative care could change that experience. Inspired by her veterinarian mother, my guest set out to build pet insurance that helps owners care for animals before problems become serious.
[00:01:22] And today we'll cover everything from AI-assisted claims, when humans should step in, clearer expectations, app-based health guidance, activity tracking for your pets, and the commercial case for keeping customers involved between claims. Well let me tell you, as a rough collie owner, I might be slightly biased on today's conversation, but any conversation combining dogs, data, tech, and fewer insurance headaches.
[00:01:51] It's one that's certainly got my attention. But enough from me, let me introduce you to my guest now. So thank you for joining me on the podcast today. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? Thank you so much for inviting me. My name is Hedda Barber-Dolson. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Lassie. We are a pet insurance that rewards healthy behavior. So inspired by my mom, who's a vet, I wanted to make pet insurance fun, but also rewarding.
[00:02:19] So we have a gamification system where we make it super fun to take good care of your pet and reward you for it with a better price. And we worked a lot with tech and AI to make everything from the app to daily companion to also paying back claims in just six minutes with AI. So that's me and Lassie in a nutshell. Well, I've got to say, one of the reasons I was so excited to get you on the podcast today, I have a rough collie dog as well.
[00:02:46] So whenever I take him for a walk, people say, oh, it's a Lassie dog. Yeah. And I'm curious, watching your veterinarian mother there, to treat illnesses that might have been prevented probably helped inspire Lassie there. But how did that experience lead you to reconsider what pet insurance should actually provide? Because as a pet owner, dog owner myself, I've had many experiences there, some good, some bad. But tell me about the experiences that put you on this path.
[00:03:17] Yeah. So I think I grew up very naive, to be honest. Like since my mom is a veterinary, we never really went to the vet. We had very healthy pets. And I think, of course, we were a little bit lucky that some things are genetic. But 40% can be prevented. So it's everything about knowing what food is toxic. More than 65% of pets are obese. And that could lead to other problems.
[00:03:42] So I think I was very naive and unaware that people had so much problems with the vet. So it was only when I got older that I realized that people spend so much money on the vet. But most importantly, there was so much fear and worry involved in it as well, because pets are your family members. So a lot of people are, of course, prepared to pay the cost, even if they don't like it. But it's also, you know, the worry of your family member being ill.
[00:04:08] And I think I spent a couple of years working as a management consultant at McKinsey and on the investment side at EQT. And I kind of really wanted to do something that I was passionate about. And when that idea came to me, I jokingly say I wanted to put my mom in your pocket. I kind of wanted to digitize my mom. It was just like an idea that I couldn't let go of. Sometimes you just become almost obsessed with, I think I need to do this. This is just too good of an idea to pass on.
[00:04:36] So I had no money, no team, but I was very determined that I was going to change pet health forever and build a great business around it. So I started to ask around for introductions to who's the most innovative person in pet insurance, who's the most best kind of developer who can build a really cool app and work with AI. So, yeah, I think it was just sometimes an idea just sticks with you and it says click. That's at least how it was for me.
[00:05:04] Well, it's an incredibly cool story. And I think pet insurance, a lot of pet owners listening might agree here, has somewhat of a trust problem with many owners discovering the limits of their cover only when they go on to make a claim. But I've got to ask from what you've seen here, what is causing that gap between the expectations of the pet owners and the reality when they go to make a claim? Yeah, I think it's a complex question.
[00:05:32] But my take on it is that people, even if they say that they're not, are quite price sensitive and it's quite competitive market with lots of competition out there. So people tend to go for something that looks not too expensive. And when you go for the cheaper product, that also means that maybe in the fine print it says that not everything was covered. That's why the product was able to be offered at a cheaper price.
[00:05:58] So it's the competition between the different companies means that you put things in fine print. So like pre-existing is not covered or, you know, only our ST scans, but up to this level or so competitions mean there's some fine prints. Competition and price sensitivity also means that there's a lot of products created to be cheap because you win on price. But so that means that people don't buy the optimal coverage that you need to protect your pet.
[00:06:28] And this is a topic very close to my heart because a few years ago we lost our dog who was another rough collie. And we went in for just a routine appointment. And before we knew it, we found out he had a heart problem, heart defect. And then we're in a world of scans and we need to rush you to a cardiologist at another part of the country. So I know all too well. At the most stressful time, the last stress you need is looking at pet insurance policies and things.
[00:06:56] And at Lassie, you say AI can process a photographed receipt and settle many claims in around six minutes, which is a real game changer there. But what happens behind the scenes and where does a human still need to make the decision then? Yeah, so we spent a lot of time building out our own kind of AI agents. We call our system Bark Office, kind of a fun way of playing a back office, but pet inspired, of course.
[00:07:23] But we made a real kind of step-by-step approach where we take a look at the invoice. Can we scan it? Can we read it? And then kind of split again everything into, is this a sickness? Is this an accident? What kind of behavior was it? Was it covered? Was it not? So we go through it kind of line by line. And if we're sure, this goes super quick. This goes in seconds. If we're sure about everything, we pay it up and you have the money in six minutes.
[00:07:51] If we're not sure, if we feel like we are uncertain about some lines, it could be a blurry invoice or it could be there's a diagnosis code missing on the receipt. So we actually don't really know why it was treated or we're missing some parts of the journal or something like that. We would send an automatic email back to you and asking for that, hopefully. So usually, if we're sure about everything, about 65% in Germany is paid out in six minutes.
[00:08:20] But if we are unsure or if there are certain levels, some higher limits with really expensive claims, we always have a human to take a look at it. And I think when we're talking about claims automation, yeah, it can improve speed. But the stakes are also quite high because a mistake can impact both the animal's care and the owner's finances.
[00:08:43] So anything you can share on how you test accuracy, manage unusual cases or things that don't fit the script and make an automated decision actually understandable? Yeah. So we spent a lot of time making it understandable. When we inform a customer about their claim, we send a very detailed email with kind of line by line, this was covered or maybe this wasn't covered because this was not included in your policy.
[00:09:10] Or maybe you also at the clinic at the same time bought some food to your pet. So maybe that wasn't covered by the insurance. So we kind of go line by line explaining what was included and not what was included. And right now, our error margin for automated claims is below 2%. And actually, in the insurance industry, there's a general notion that human error margin is 5%. So our AI is actually better than the average human's big mistakes as well, right? You can be tired.
[00:09:39] It could be a Friday afternoon, as it is today. So human error is not perfect either. But the good thing is also a customer could always dispute and say, actually, I think there was a mistake here. Can you take a look at it again? And then we would do it. And what I also love about what you do here, we're not just talking about a cold insurance policy for your pet. We're talking about insurance that becomes more something that owners use regularly through health guidance, rewards and tracking, etc.
[00:10:07] So how does that change the relationship between insurer, owner and pet? Tell me more about that and why you wanted to take this approach. Yeah. So it's super cool to see more than 90% of our pet parents use the app. And I think it's like 95 now. And 25% of them use it daily. And they do everything from watching videos on how to remove ticks or trim the nails to how to find obesity earlier.
[00:10:36] Or it's lots of videos of fun quizzes. And we also have a partnership with trackers. So you can integrate a tracker and get the daily exercise. We have some kind of like a streak. So if you're active a couple of days in a row, you will get extra points. So it's really a fun app that's like a daily health companion or like a digitalized version of your mom giving you some tips and tricks. And it's based on if you have a puppy, you kind of get like a week by week guide on what you train each week.
[00:11:04] Or if it's an older pet, what you think about with their joints or hip. So it's very focused on a personalized based on breed, age, but also season. I mean, if Christmas is coming up, super important to keep the chocolate away from the pets or kind of similar tips and tricks that you really have with you as daily companion. And what we've seen now since being live five years and insuring more than kind of 300 pets now across four market is really builds another type of relationship with our customers.
[00:11:34] Insurance in general, people maybe check an app if they have a claim or if there's a failed payments or renewal, maybe a couple of times a year max. But we keep a relationship with our customers daily. So that obviously creates another bond and another loyalty. And they feel like we are part of the journey of keeping their pets healthier.
[00:11:57] So I think it's a very good circle of kind of healthier pets and the pet parents feeling more kind of safe and trust. They're feeling like they're being good pet parents and doing the right thing for the pets. And for us, it leads to better loyalty, reduced churn and kind of higher LTV as a business result as well. And I mean, also a cheaper price for the pet parents. I mean, people, as I mentioned earlier, are price sensitive.
[00:12:22] So it's also a way to be able to buy a more comprehensive package, but still not pay too much because we reduce the price if you do preventive things. And I mean, people want to be good pet parents. It's not that you feel forced to learn more about your pets. People want to do right by their pets. So it's not difficult to get people to be kind of excited about the app.
[00:12:44] Now, I must admit you had me there with, as a geeky dog owner, the fact that you could track your pet's activity there and the kind of steps or activity they're doing. How do you do that? Is it, I don't know, an Apple tag or is it something else? What do you do? So right now we have a collaboration with a tracking company called Tractim. They're biggest in Europe and maybe also in the world. So if you buy Pet Insurance with Lassie, you get a free Tractive tracker that you can integrate with Lassie.
[00:13:13] But then you pay the monthly Tractive subscription yourself. But also if you already have a Tractive subscription, you can integrate the existing one with Lassie. So we get the steps via the Tractive. But you can also manually yourself if you can't afford a tracker or prefer to do it manually. You can also log activity manually in the app. Awesome. Incredibly cool.
[00:13:34] And I've got to ask, obviously I'm in the UK and I was reading a stat here that around 20 million UK pets remain uninsured, which really took me back a little bit there and surprised me. So how much of that comes down to affordability? How much is distrust? And how do you address both of these things to get people on board? So I actually think it's more of a culture and distrust things than price.
[00:14:01] So for example, in Sweden, pet insurance is even more expensive than in the UK. And here 90% of dogs are insured and 50 to 60% of cats. But it's a cultural thing. We've seen the pets as a family for a really long time. So we want to be able to feel safe and cared for. We want to feel like if something really bad happens, if I need to do a really big surgery, then I'm covered.
[00:14:27] Because smaller things, maybe you can feel like you can afford paying out of pocket. But if something really big, a big surgery, weekend overnight stays can easily become kind of 10K or more. So people, there's a culture of seeing your pet as a family member and the culture of kind of trusting insurance with that. So I think UK, it's been, yeah, it's hard to see if it's a bit behind on that or probably a bit of culture as well. Now, obviously you're talking to me in Sweden today.
[00:14:56] I'm in the UK. We have people listening all over the world. Where are you available at the moment in the world? So we started in Sweden. Our second market, it was Germany. We're since 2024, also in France. And since one month back now, also in UK. So our strategy is to win Europe. Awesome.
[00:15:17] And banking and human healthcare have trained consumers to expect these clear app-based services that we just use routinely and seamlessly now. So why do you think pet insurance has been slower to respond? And what have you learned from, as you roll out this launch across European markets? Any big lessons you've learned along the way as well? I think insurance incumbents are behind. The industry is behind on tech solutions compared to banking.
[00:15:45] It's a lot easier for us to wow customers in insurance than I think it is in banking. Customers are so wowed by, you know, getting a claim back in six minutes or by having an app. So I think it's just very low expectations from customers in the pet insurance world. I think that's been part of our success, to be honest. And I'm not taking away credit from us, but it's not been that difficult to innovate or create wow moments because I think just the level have been very low.
[00:16:13] And I think there's something around the incumbents having very old tech systems that they haven't invested in. So if they have systems from the 18s or 19s, I've heard so many incumbents talk about that it's just a patchwork of different systems that don't even speak to each other. So it's impossible for them to create smooth onboardings or app or automations. They probably need to rebuild their whole system. And then that's a big exercise. They're big companies.
[00:16:42] And just making that decision and investing and, you know, the culture of innovation is maybe not so strong there. So I think it's probably an industry problem, but I see it. Well, I love what you've created here. And I think when you mentioned that patchwork of different systems, that's something that I've seen not only in pet insurance, but on travel websites. And it can be incredibly frustrating.
[00:17:03] And I love how you're using technology here from AI to dog tracking as well, poor pet tracking and incredible what you've achieved. And there are so many big tech trends at the moment. And you guys are standing out in front here. I'm curious, when you see all the tech trends, what are you thinking about the future? Are you thinking, oh, we could do this? We could do that. And you probably can't share too much. But how do you see us continuing to evolve in the future?
[00:17:29] No, but I think we have kind of three big goals for the future that we're going all in. And I think I talked already about winning Europe. That's our next step. We want to roll out across Europe and go to more markets and kind of win globally, of course. But first step is Europe. But then I think we're also super excited about AI and automations. But I think it's equally important knowing when to automate and when not to automate. Pet insurance and pets are a very emotional product.
[00:17:58] So our view is that we want to automate where it makes sense, where it's a smooth process, where it's a wow moment for the customer. So claim is a perfect example. No one wants to wait for their money back for three or six or eight weeks. Six minutes, it's like a wow moment. But if your pet is sick or if it's dying, you don't want to talk to a bot. You want to double down on being human and emotional where it matters.
[00:18:24] And then you want to automate all the admin and the boring process where you don't want to be in a phone queue or talk to a human. So we're really big on kind of doubling down on that mix and finding that perfect sweet spot between being superhuman and super emotional, but also automate where people prefer, where it makes a lot of extra value. And then I think the third thing is we're already seeing the great interaction and people loving our apps,
[00:18:50] just doubling down on building out that app and kind of soon launching more services and features and product lines outside of pet insurance and other types of subscription. It's something I can't tease about, but can't talk too much detail about. But that's something we're really excited about, building out kind of more of a pet health ecosystem super app or so to say. So that's our big vision. Ah, you've left us with a teaser there.
[00:19:18] Sounds like we will need to get you back on in the new year. And honestly, I love that dashboard element there where you can just log on and you've got everything about your pet there, whether it be activity and diet and everything in between. And as users, we have that on health apps for ourselves. And I think bringing the closest members of our family very often into that as well is just brilliant. So I applaud you for what you're doing. And I've got to ask you, do you have any pets? What pets do you have?
[00:19:46] Yeah, so I have a six-year-old Labrador, a black lab called Louie. So he's been a big part of Lassie. And it was the first thing after I left investment, buying a pet because I couldn't have one in my previous work. So now he's in the office almost every day. And he's also been a model in many of our ads. So he's been a big part of the journey so far. Brilliant. And for anybody listening that would like to find out more about anything we've talked about today
[00:20:15] and contact you or your team or just have a look around and see if a policy would be right for them, where should they go? So I think the best places are either our website. The global version is lassie.co and then you can be directed to different country sites, but also the app. Or if you're more kind of curious about a career at Lassie or something else, follow me on Lassie on LinkedIn, where we kind of post regularly about the journey or our insights about either building tech or AI or prevention.
[00:20:44] Well, again, a massive thank you for coming on here. I love learning more about this world's first preventative pet insurance and companion app that comes with it as well. I'm going to be monitoring you very closely. And between me and you, when my policy runs out, I may be looking you guys up as well. But more than anything, I'll add links to everything and encourage people to check you out. And I will be following what extra tech things you add and we'll be getting you back on next year. That's for sure. Robert, thanks for sharing your story today. Thank you so much.
[00:21:13] Looking forward to coming back. I think one of the many things I took away from Hedda's story today is that speed earns attention. Trust requires transparency and human judgment. And an automated claim paid in minutes can remove stress, provided customers understand the decision and can ask a person to review it.
[00:21:36] And preventative guidance also changes that relationship because the insurer is becoming useful between emergencies when owners can act before a problem grows. So a big thank you to her for joining me today, explaining how Lassie is combining insurance, health education, rewards, technology, activity tracking across Europe.
[00:22:01] And remember, you can learn more at lassie.co, which should direct you to the relevant country where you're listening, including its UK service where I'm based. And just to confirm, if you're looking at the images associated with today's episode and the blog post, that handsome black Labrador in the photograph is Louie, which ironically is also the same name as my son. So many similarities going on here.
[00:22:26] But over to you, would daily support make you trust and use a pet insurer differently, especially if you can open up an app and have a dashboard of your pet's activity, etc. Look to hear your thoughts on this one. TechTalksNetwork.com. You'll find a blog post associated with this episode, links to everything and anything else I can find to bring it all to life. So check that out. And remember, you can meet me on the road or work with me or just browse through 4,000 interviews. Lots for you to look at over there.
[00:22:56] But that's it for today. So thanks for listening as always. Bye for now.