THE MOTIVATING FACTORS OF PET OWNERS ON BUYING PET INSURANCE IN THAILAND was submitted to College of Management, Mahidol University. However, the pet insurance business still has the potential to grow in Thailand due to the higher number of pet adoptions and the trend towards pet-loving lifestyles. Therefore, this research will study the motivation and characteristics of pet owners who have the potential to purchase pet insurance.
H4: Risk perception from pet adoption has a positive effect on the intention to purchase pet insurance. H5: Prevention of financial risk from pet adoption has a positive effect on the intention to purchase pet insurance.
LITERATURE REVIEW
- Pet Insurance
- Human-Pet Relationships
- Pet Responsibility
- Risk Perception
- Financial Risk
- Intention to Purchase Pet Insurance
Therefore, the Human-Pet relationship is an important factor in the purchase motivation of pet owners. Thus, pet liability may be a motivating factor that influences pet owners to purchase pet insurance to complete their liability duty. Research on pet owners' preferences for pet insurance has illustrated that risk perception in terms of the fear that their pet will get sick or die has a significant effect on the motivation to purchase pet insurance.
The third level: Willing to make a purchase in the future, but need to explore more information. Moreover, there are researchers who show the importance of pet responsibility in the intention to purchase pet insurance, which also indicated that pet responsibility is related to human-pet relationships as it will increase along with the stronger bond of the relationship (Hens, 2008, Jarvis, 2018 and Jenkins et al., 2016).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
- Conceptual Framework
- Data Collection
- Data Analysis
- Reliability Test
Then the four independent variables will be examined on their effect on purchase intention, which are human-pet relationships, pet responsibility, risk perception of pet adoption and financial risk prevention. The first is Interaction or the adapted behavior for their partner which will be measured in three situations; play with pets, travel with pets and take pets to meet friends and family. All the findings will be used to develop an effective marketing strategy and attractive marketing communication for the pet insurance company in Thailand.
Respondents will be asked to answer the questions on a 5-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), which is reduced from the 7-point scale of Chen et al. 2012) that studies the consumption value and behavior of pet owners, because this research study in the context of pet insurance and this business is not very well known in Thailand, so Thai people may not have enough knowledge to answer the delicate scale (Limited, 2019) . The sample size will be at least 130 people or five times of the observing variables which are 26 questions in this study, this amount is suitable for studying factor analysis (Spss Expert, 2019). SPSS will be an important analysis tool in this study as it can read statistical data and provide a finished result to answer all the research questions.
First, the research question that questions about the characteristic of pet owners who have the potential to buy pet insurance will be answered based on demographic data in terms of gender, age, education, occupation and income, and characteristics in terms of spending on pets and participatory role in pets (Chen et al., 2012). The factor analysis model will be used to classify suitable variables by grouping appropriate measurement items together and naming them as new variables (or if the set of os measurement items belongs to its current factor, the current factors will be used for the next analysis). Then the factors of the factor analysis stage will be tested in correlation analysis using Bivariate correlation with Pearson as correlation coefficients.
The relationship between human-pet relationship and pet responsibility will be found whether it is positive (positive Pearson correlation value) or negative (negative Pearson correlation value), also investigate whether the correlation is strong (Pearson correlation > . .5) or weak ( Pearson correlation < .5). At this stage, the answer to the research question of proving the human-pet relationship and pet responsibility will be the same as hypothesis 2, which mentions a positive relationship between human-pet relationship and pet responsibility. Finally, a linear regression model will be used to test the influential effect of each factor from the factor analysis on purchase intention, which will be aligned as the dependent variable, while the other factors will be aligned as independent variables.
DATA ANALYSIS
- Demographics and Sample Characteristics
- Factor Analysis
- Reliability Test
- Correlation analysis
- Regression analysis
At the first level of intention, which is intention to purchase in the near future, the first trustee is significantly different from the second trustee (Sig. = .011) and the third trustee (Sig. = .000) with a lower mean value. compared to both groups, which can be interpreted as the first group of caregivers being more willing to purchase pet insurance than the other groups. Similarity to the first level of purchase intention, the second level or future purchase intention, and the third level or future purchase intention, but need more information also indicates that the first trust group has lower. Thus, we can answer the first research question that an important characteristic of potential buyers who have a high chance of taking out pet insurance is the first caregiving group, or the key person who takes care of the pets.
According to the result in Table 4.6, there are three factors that influence the intention to purchase pet insurance, namely risk perception, financial risk and pet travel behavior. There is one factor that is not significant in this phase, namely the human behavior factor. -pet relationships. The increase in the human-pet relationship by 1 unit is increased in purchase intention by 0.152 units. Then the increase of 1 unit of Risk Perception in Purchase Intention is increased by 0.258 units.
The first influential factor, risk perception of pet adoption, has a significant influence on purchase intention (sig. = .002 and beta = .221), meaning that the owners with higher risk perception in terms of fear that pets will die, thinking pets will die. those who need medical care in the future or fear losing it will have a greater intention to purchase pet insurance. Next, financial risk also has a positive influence on purchase intention (sig. = .004 and beta = .189), which means that the owners who are concerned about the financial risk caused by pets are likely to plan to purchase pet insurance. Pet travel behavior has the strongest positive influence on the intention to use, as the standardized coefficients Beta have the highest value of .306 (Sig. = .000), which means that the owners who exhibit the behavior of traveling with pets have the tend to purchase pet insurance.
The result in Table 4.6 shows that human-pet relationships do not significantly affect the intention to buy pet insurance (sig. = .180). Moreover, pet responsibility factor also does not influence the intention to buy as it is not significant in the factor analysis phase. Thus, the regression result can answer research question number 3, which is to find the influential factors that affect the intention to purchase pet insurance.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECCOMENDATIONS
- Discussion
- Conclusions
- Recommendations
- Limitation and Future research
This result is supported by the finding of William et al., (2016) that the owner who perceives higher risk from pet adoption will have a higher intention to purchase pet insurance. Therefore, owners tend to purchase pet insurance to reduce concern about those risks (William et al., 2016). This finding is consistent with the study of Jenkins et al., (2016) who mentioned that the main reason to purchase pet insurance is to prevent financial risk caused by pets.
On the same page, the effect of Pet responsibility on purchase intention also conflicts with the outcome of Jenkins et al. 2016) who stated that the owners buy pet insurance to fulfill their responsible role on their pets. The study by Jenkins et al. 2016) was conducted in the USA, and American people have more knowledge about pet insurance than Thai people (APPA, 2018). Moreover, hypothesis 4 and 5 are confirmed which means that Risk Perception and Financial prevention have effect on Intention to buy pet insurance.
Interestingly, the new pet travel behavior factor also influences the intention to purchase pet insurance. However, hypothesis 1 and 3 are not proven which means that human-animal relationship and pet responsibility do not significantly influence the intention to purchase pet insurance. The result shows that pet owners who are the primary caregiver have the greatest potential to purchase pet insurance.
Finally, research question number 3, the influential factors influencing the intention to purchase pet insurance are Risk Perception, Financial Risk Aversion and the new pet travel behavior factor. The first limitation of this study is that this study did not understand why owners do or do not purchase pet insurance. The second limitation, this research does not have enough knowledge about the travel behavior of pets, so it is not clearly understood why this behavior affects the intention to purchase pet insurance.
คุณค่าของแบรนด์ที่เน้นการบริการและผลกระทบต่อความชอบของแบรนด์และความตั้งใจในการซื้อ: การศึกษาลูกค้าประกันสุขภาพในแพลตฟอร์มอำเภอธานชวูร์ในประเทศไทย (ประกันภัยสัตว์เลี้ยงออนไลน์แห่งแรกในประเทศไทย)
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: Questionnaire
I love my pets because they are more loyal to me than most people in my life. I am concerned about the financial burden when my pet has had an accident, such as when my pet has bitten someone, a car accident and another pet has bitten my pet.
APPENDIX B: Demographics and Sample Characteristics
APPENDIX C: ANOVA Result of type of pet(s) owned
