A look at pet support and mobility policies

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day. It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.”
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World’s Worst Dog

Our family has 3 dogs (one which we got at the beginning of the pandemic), and a cat. The quote above by John Grogan really resonated as there is no question that our furry family members have added so much to our lives! 

At this point, two in three households own a pet, according to American Pet Products Association (APPA) data. This equates to 86.9 million households. Cats and dogs add up to almost half of the 146 million. What this means is that there is a lot of money being spent on pets, and people care a lot about their fuzzy friends.

Relocating with pets can be stressful. Employees have an additional layer of logistics to figure out, and some employees may even refuse to move without pet support built into their process and policy. As an example, when doing some recent user testing on our Point C mobility solution (a credit based tool with many different pet support options available), we interviewed an employee that shared their situation:

"The situation we had that was so stressful was with the dogs. My labradoodle is 90 lbs and it's way too hot to put the dog in cargo and my partner was like "we are not dropping them at JFK for 3 days to fly!" I reached out to my manager to say I don't think we are moving because if my dogs cannot move, we are not moving". But we were able to get someone to drive the dogs! This was the highlight of our move. Some of the best service! My life is pretty simple, it’s all about the dogs, the amount of stuff we saw for pets was great.  We had everything we needed for them, and the services we picked were on-time and they would text and send pics/videos every hour during my dog’s trip."

We recently benchmarked pet support in mobility policies. Approximately ⅓ of Plus's clients provide a specific benefit for pet transportation and associated costs. The remaining policies recommend using a lump sum or miscellaneous allowance for any pet relocation needs. The most common benefit in policies where pet support is offered is a direct monetary reimbursement, often with a cap. For 65% of companies, the benefit amount falls between $2500 and $5000. 

We also see a few companies adding in a small dedicated amount for pet support, in the range of $250-$500. This is less common, although as we all know from our own obsession with our pets, this might make all the difference in the world for some employees!