For employers, HR and benefits teams
Companion Health at Work
Help your employees prepare for the animals they love.
Give employees a simple way to prepare financially for veterinary care before an unexpected bill becomes a financial emergency.
Employers can offer Companion Health as a voluntary benefit at no required employer contribution — or make it more meaningful by contributing alongside their employees.
Where things stand: the Companion Health Account and Card require a banking partner that has not yet been signed, and nothing here is an offer of them. The care forecast, the urSmartID tag and the lifelong record infrastructure are live today. Employer conversations, pilot scoping and We Care structuring are open now, so that a workplace program is ready when the account launches. What a Companion Health Account is
Your employees don’t all have the same family.
Employers have spent decades building benefits around healthcare, retirement, children and dependent care. Those benefits matter. But today’s workforce represents many different kinds of households, and for millions of employees one of the family members they are financially responsible for has four legs.
Companion Health doesn’t replace traditional family benefits. It expands the benefits conversation to recognise another significant household responsibility.
39%
of U.S. families had their own children under 18 living in the household in 2025.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Families and Living Arrangements: 2025 (2025) (opens in a new tab)
58.6%
of U.S. households owned pets in 2025.
54%
of employers offered dependent-care FSAs in SHRM’s 2025 survey.
Source: SHRM, 2025 Employee Benefits Survey (2025) (opens in a new tab)
22%
of employers offered pet insurance in SHRM’s 2025 survey.
Source: SHRM, 2025 Employee Benefits Survey (2025) (opens in a new tab)
These are four separate measurements of four separate things — household composition and benefit provision, from different surveys of different populations. They are shown side by side, and are not arithmetic on one another.
A veterinary emergency doesn’t stay at the veterinary hospital.
An unexpected veterinary emergency can create two crises at once: concern for an animal the employee considers family, and an immediate financial decision — usually taken standing at a counter, in the worst hour of that person’s month.
What the employee is doing that day
- Leaving work for emergency care
- Arranging treatment and follow-up
- Looking for available credit
- Moving money between accounts
- Calling family
- Making treatment decisions under time pressure
What that has to do with work
Financial stress is associated with workplace distraction, absenteeism and presenteeism. We are not going to put a percentage on veterinary emergencies specifically — no source we would stand behind measures that. What the evidence does support is that a large share of employees have very little between them and an unplanned four-figure bill, and that a large share of pet owners say a four-figure bill is beyond what they could find.
What happens when the bill is $1,000 — and the money isn’t there?
66%
of U.S. pet owners said they could afford no more than $1,000 for lifesaving veterinary treatment.
Source: PetSmart Charities / Gallup, State of Pet Care Study (2025) (opens in a new tab)
7%
of surveyed pet owners reported having declined lifesaving surgery.
Source: PetSmart Charities / Gallup, State of Pet Care Study (2025) (opens in a new tab)
59%
of employees surveyed reported being financially stressed.
Source: PwC, Employee Financial Wellness Survey (2026) (opens in a new tab)
30%
of employees surveyed reported having less than $1,000 in emergency savings.
Source: PwC, Employee Financial Wellness Survey (2026) (opens in a new tab)
The pet-owner figures and the employee figures come from different studies of different populations. Nothing here implies that the employees with thin emergency savings are the same people as the pet owners in the first two cards; they are presented together as evidence of financial vulnerability, not combined.
Companion Health moves part of that decision upstream. Instead of first thinking about veterinary financing while standing at the counter, the employee has been preparing over time.
What if they had been preparing for that $1,000 all year?
The answer isn’t for the employer to pay every veterinary bill. It is to give employees a reason to prepare, a realistic target, an automatic way to save, and — when the employer chooses — help getting there faster.
A $1,000 annual preparedness target
$38.46
per bi-weekly paycheck
Or, with a 50% employer match
$19.23
employee
$19.23
employer
An illustration, not a recommended contribution. $1,000 is used because it is the figure the research measures a ceiling at — a household’s real target comes from its own animals’ forecast and is different for everyone.
Work out a contribution
Illustration onlyChange any of these. The figures are arithmetic on what you enter — not a recommendation, a quote, or a target for any particular household.
Per paycheck (26 per year)
Employee
$19.23
$500.00 per year
Employer
$19.23
$500.00 per year, per participating employee
Toward the target
$38.46
$1,000.00 per year
Illustrative arithmetic only. Not a recommended contribution, not a quote, and not a statement of what any household should set aside. Employer contribution mechanics — including payroll deduction — are subject to final program, banking and payroll structure. Deductions are post-tax under current law; this is not an HSA, an FSA, or any other tax-advantaged account.
Financial stress follows employees to work.
Absenteeism
Time away from work — the emergency visit, the follow-up appointment, the morning spent arranging care.
Presenteeism
Being physically at work while stress or caregiving demands impair focus. It is harder to see than absence, and it does not appear on a timesheet.
Companion Health is not a productivity guarantee, and we will not present it as one. It is designed to reduce one avoidable source of financial uncertainty by helping an employee prepare before veterinary care becomes urgent.
We can’t promise that an animal won’t become ill. We can help make sure the veterinary bill isn’t an entirely separate emergency.
For many employees, this isn’t “just a pet.”
Peer-reviewed research has found that clinically significant prolonged grief can occur following the death of a companion animal, with symptom patterns comparable in structure to grief following human bereavement.
Source: PLOS ONE, No pets allowed: Evidence that prolonged grief disorder can occur following the death of a pet (2026)
That finding describes what can occur — not what happens to everyone. Most people grieve an animal and carry on. The point is narrower and worth stating plainly: for some employees this is a bereavement, and it is treated as one here.
When finances limit the treatment options available, the consequences can extend beyond the veterinary decision itself. Financial preparedness cannot prevent illness, and no amount of money guarantees an outcome — but having funds available can expand the choices a household has when treatment is needed, and may preserve options that otherwise would not be financially available.
How Companion Health at Work works
Eight steps, none of which require the employer to administer a benefit plan, handle anybody’s money, or see anybody’s records.
- The employee enrolsEnrolment is the employee’s decision, not the employer’s. Participation is voluntary and individual.
- They register their animalsOne household, however many animals. The household is the unit that actually budgets, so it is the unit the program works from.
- The system builds a care forecastSpecies, breed, age, location and — as records accumulate — the animal’s own medical history produce an expected annual cost and a reserve target, expressed as an amount per paycheck.
- The employee chooses what to set asideThe forecast is guidance, not a requirement. The household picks the amount and the frequency; partial preparation is still preparation.
- Savings can run through payroll deductionWhere supportedPost-tax, where the employer supports it. Money deducted before it reaches a checking account is money that does not have to be found later.
- The card is used for veterinary and prescription spendingPending banking partnerAuthorisation-restricted to veterinary services and prescriptions. The funds remain the employee’s, refundable, with no expiry.
- Care can be pulled back into the recordPending banking partnerWith the owner’s standing authorisation, a charge at a practice can initiate a request for the corresponding medical documents. A transaction never transfers records by itself.
- The forecast gets more individualEvery visit, result and year of history moves the estimate off population assumptions and onto this animal. Unlike a premium, a more accurate estimate does not cost the household more.
The employer’s view stops at participation. Offering the benefit provides no access to an employee’s animal medical records, their balance, or how they spend. The record belongs to the household.
One enrolment. A broader animal-care system.
Participation connects an employee to more than a savings target. Each item below is marked with what is available today and what is waiting on the banking partner — because a benefits page that blurs the two is not one an HR team can rely on.
Personalised veterinary cost forecast
A number derived from the animal in the record, not a national average — free to use, no account required.
Household support for multiple animals
One forecast across every animal in the home, with a per-animal ledger beneath it.
urSmartID animal identification
A physical smart tag that ties the animal to its identity, its records and recovery tools.
Lifelong animal record
A permanent history that survives a change of clinic, a move, or an emergency visit at two in the morning.
Lost-pet recovery infrastructure
A scan of the tag reaches the people who can reunite the animal with its household.
Companion Health Account
The employee-owned savings account the program is built around.
Companion Health card
Spending restricted to veterinary services and prescriptions.
Automatic veterinary record collection
Card spending can initiate an authorised request for the matching medical documents.
Included at enrolment
A $50 urSmartID benefit — the part employees hold in their hand.
A benefit that only matters during an emergency is hard for an employee to value on the day they enrol. urSmartID makes it tangible immediately: a physical smart tag, per eligible enrolment, as determined by current program rules.
The tag is not promotional merchandise. It is part of the animal identity infrastructure the rest of the program is built on — it connects the animal to its identity, its lifelong record, and the recovery tools that matter on the day it goes missing.
Identity
Lifelong records
Recovery
Ecosystem access
Two ways for employers to participate
Both are real ways to help. One costs nothing and still changes what an employee has available in an emergency; the other gets them there faster.
Offer Companion Health
Required employer contribution: $0
The employer
- Adds Companion Health to the available employee benefits
- Supports enrolment through normal benefits communication
- Enables compatible payroll deduction where supported
The employee
- Owns the account outright
- Chooses their own contribution amount and frequency
- Receives the full Companion Health experience
Become a We Care Employer
You set the formula and the annual cap
The employer
- Contributes toward employees’ Companion Health preparedness
- Chooses the match or fixed-contribution formula
- Chooses the annual cap, so budget exposure stays known
The employee
- Still saves their own money, in their own account
- Builds the reserve faster with employer help
The organisation
- Becomes eligible for We Care Employer recognition
- Receives approved We Care brand assets
- May be listed and promoted as an organisation actively supporting animal welfare
Employer contribution mechanics, including payroll deduction, are subject to final program, banking and payroll structure. Deductions are post-tax under current law. Companion Health is not an HSA, an FSA or any other tax-advantaged account.
Companies that contribute do more than offer a benefit.
They show that they care.
Organisations that financially contribute toward their employees’ Companion Health preparedness can be recognised through the We Care program. The designation is meant to communicate that an organisation puts real resources behind employee financial preparedness, companion animal health, responsible animal care and broader animal welfare.
Recognition an employer becomes eligible for
- We Care Employer digital badge
- Employer profile in the We Care directory
- Inclusion in participating-employer search
- Recognition across appropriate urSynergy ecosystem sites
- Approved We Care assets for careers, HR, recruiting and community pages
- Participation in local animal-welfare initiatives where available
How it is earned
Employer financial participation
The organisation contributes toward its employees’ Companion Health preparedness under an agreed formula and cap. This is the qualifying path for employers, and the one this page is about.
Verified community animal-welfare participationNot open yet
Reserved for organisations whose qualifying contribution takes another verified form. Criteria are not published yet, and no organisation is recognised through this path today.
We Care is earned through verified qualifying participation. It is not a badge that can be purchased.
Your benefit can benefit more than your employees.
A defined portion of eligible urSynergy program revenue can be reinvested into animal-welfare needs in participating communities.
What that support may go toward
- Veterinary assistance
- Shelter and rescue food
- Emergency animal care
- Shelter and rescue supplies
- Vaccination initiatives
- Spay/neuter programs
- Lost-animal recovery
- Disaster response involving animals
- Community animal-welfare projects
- Other verified animal-welfare needs
Built to be reported, not asserted
The reporting structure is designed to publish distribution by:
Community · Organisation · Program · Category · Amount distributed · Date · Recipient · Verification status · Outcome
No figures are shown here, because no revenue has been generated or distributed yet. A commitment of this kind is only worth what its disclosure is worth.
Customer deposits remain customer money. Community support comes from urSynergy’s designated share of program-generated revenue — never from customer account balances, which are never pooled, lent, reduced or drawn on for any other purpose. The final funding mechanism depends on completed banking and commercial agreements.
Employees prepare for their own animals.
Participating employers help build a culture of preparedness.
And the program is designed to return resources to animal welfare where communities need them.
A benefit employees can understand before they ever need it.
- Expands financial-wellness benefits into an often-overlooked household expense
- Voluntary participation can require no employer contribution
- Predictable contribution budget when employer matching is used
- Supports employees before a crisis rather than after one
- Recognises different household structures
- A tangible included animal-identity benefit employees receive immediately
- Aligns the employer brand with animal welfare
- Creates a community-facing We Care opportunity
- A portable, employee-owned account that travels with the employee
- A simple annual and open-enrolment communication opportunity
- May create meaningful employee goodwill
Every line above is a property of how the program is structured. None of it is a prediction about retention, productivity or return — those would be claims we cannot support, and a pilot is how an employer finds out rather than being told.
Start with a pilot.
A pilot is how an employer answers the questions this page deliberately does not answer for them. We would rather be measured than believed.
What a pilot measures
- Enrolment rate
- Funded-account rate
- Employee participation
- Employee contribution levels
- Employer contribution levels
- Savings growth
- Account retention
- Employee feedback
- Employee satisfaction and usefulness survey
- Payroll-advance requests associated with veterinary emergencies, where the employer already tracks that dataoptional
We do not promise that payroll-advance requests will fall. It is on the list so an employer who already tracks that data can find out.
Talk to us about your workplace.
Tell us a little about your organisation and we will follow up with the employer materials, a walkthrough, or a pilot conversation — whichever is useful.
- No employer contribution is required to offer Companion Health.
- Employees own their accounts, and take them with them.
- Employers get no access to employee animal medical records.
Questions employers ask
Is Companion Health pet insurance?
No. It is structured around employee-owned savings and veterinary financial preparedness — not risk transfer, underwriting, claims or coverage. No money is pooled, and one employee’s funds can never be used to pay another’s expenses.
Does my company have to contribute?
No. An employer may offer Companion Health as a voluntary employee benefit without making any employer contribution.
Can we contribute if we want to?
Yes. The employer-supported model is designed to let an organisation choose its own contribution or matching formula and its own annual budget cap, subject to final program, banking and payroll structure.
Who owns the money?
The employee. Their contributions are their own funds, held for their animals, and are never pooled or lent for any other purpose.
What happens if the employee leaves our company?
The account is intended to remain with the employee. The balance goes with them and the payroll contribution converts to an ordinary transfer from their own bank.
What is We Care Employer?
A recognition program for organisations that take verified qualifying action supporting their employees’ companion-animal preparedness and animal welfare. On this page, the qualifying path is employer financial participation. It is earned through verified participation — it is not a badge that can be purchased.
Is this a tax-advantaged account like an HSA?
No. Companion Health is not an HSA, an FSA or any other tax-advantaged account, and no tax treatment is claimed. Payroll deductions are post-tax under current law.
Can an employee have more than one animal?
Yes. One account covers every animal in the household, with a per-animal ledger beneath it. The household target is not simply the sum of individual targets, because one reserve serves whichever animal needs it.
Does the employer see the employee’s animal medical records?
No. Employer participation provides no access to an employee’s animal medical records or individual medical history. The record belongs to the household.
Does urSynergy use employees’ savings to fund community programs?
No. Customer balances remain customer money and are never reduced to fund anything. Community animal-welfare reinvestment comes from urSynergy’s designated share of program-generated revenue, not from customer deposits.
When can we start?
Employer conversations, pilot scoping and We Care structuring are happening now. The savings account and card require a banking partner that has not yet been signed, and nothing is offered as though it already exists — the forecast, the urSmartID benefit and the record infrastructure are live today.
You can’t prevent every emergency.
You can help your employees be ready for one.
Offer Companion Health at no required employer contribution — or help employees build their preparedness reserve faster and become a We Care Employer.
Sources
Every figure on this page, with its publisher and year. Where a study measured one population, we have not extended it to another.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Families and Living Arrangements: 2025 (opens in a new tab) (2025)39% of U.S. families had their own children under age 18 living in the household in 2025.
- American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) — U.S. pet ownership statistics (opens in a new tab) (2025)58.6% of U.S. households owned pets in 2025.
- SHRM — 2025 Employee Benefits Survey (opens in a new tab) (2025)54% of employers offered dependent-care FSAs. 22% of employers offered pet insurance.
- PetSmart Charities / Gallup — State of Pet Care Study (opens in a new tab) (2025)66% of U.S. pet owners said they could afford no more than $1,000 for lifesaving veterinary treatment. 7% of surveyed pet owners reported having declined lifesaving surgery.
- PwC — Employee Financial Wellness Survey (opens in a new tab) (2026)59% of employees surveyed reported being financially stressed. 30% reported having less than $1,000 in emergency savings.
- PLOS ONE — No pets allowed: Evidence that prolonged grief disorder can occur following the death of a pet (2026)Clinically significant prolonged grief can occur following the death of a companion animal, with symptom patterns comparable in structure to grief following human bereavement.
Companion Health is not insurance and is not an insurance product: there is no risk transfer, no pooling of funds, no underwriting, no coverage and no claims process. It is not an HSA, an FSA or any other tax-advantaged account, and no tax treatment is claimed or implied. The Companion Health Account and Card require a banking partner that has not yet been signed; nothing on this page is an offer of a deposit account or a payment card. Employer contribution and payroll-deduction mechanics are subject to final program, banking and payroll structure. Illustrative figures are arithmetic examples only and are not a recommendation of any contribution amount.