The day before Christmas, I was in my first car accident. It was really not a big deal in the scheme of things, just superficial damage to my car and the car I hit (it was totally my fault), and thankfully, nobody was hurt.

The couple whose car I hit were on their way to a family Christmas party, and pretty peeved about the unplanned delay. Louis was with me (as per usual), he was safely belted in, but he seemed pretty jarred from the thud of the accident.

After we all calmed down, and I apologized profusely through tears, we exchanged information and began making the obligatory calls, the police (so I could get my ticket), our insurance companies, etc. While on the phone with my insurance company, Progressive, an extremely kind woman was taking down the information she needed for them claim when Louis let out a few whimpers from inside my car.”Is that your dog?” she asked. “Yes, he was buckled in and he is just a little scared,” I answered.

Then, the most unexpected thing happened. The woman on the other end of the line asked me to check my dog for injuries, as Progressive had recently added coverage for their customer’s pets. I checked Louis out and said he seemed fine and the woman let me know that if he or I showed signs of injury later and either of us needed to seek medical care, I should let the insurance company know as my policy covered us both.

As Lou is my soul-pup, my heart, my very hairy baby, I felt so very validated that my car insurance seemed to see it the same way! According to Progressive’s website, pets are indeed a part of our families and deserve collision coverage like we have. An article on MSNBC states, the Progressive benefit has been in place since Sept. 6, and it’s still too soon to determine if the company’s undetermined cost of offering it will be offset by better sales, Progressive spokeswoman Leah Knapp said.

Clearly this is a strategy to get an edge in the highly competitive car insurance market. If this becomes a successful strategy, other insurance companies may adopt the policy. There are over 150 million pets in the U.S., and Americans spend over $40 billion on their pets annually, according to a recent Insurance Information Institute study. Given that, it does seem a natural extension of our coverage, especially since pets traveling with their families is becoming more and more commonplace.

Pet Injury Coverage - Get to Know Progressive

Visit progressive.com for additional information on car insurance.

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