Emotions and finances often meet during the moving process, and Woolf evaluatesreasonable practices when pets—often viewed as family members—enter the picture.
One of the most potentially stressful life events a person can encounter is relocation, and moving with family pets adds emotional and financial anxiety to the process the family will experience.
With the pet more firmly established than ever as an integral part of the family, the emotional focus of a relocation and the prospect of moving with pets has been an issue for companies to consider in their corporate relocation policies.
Recent global economic developments have brought challenges to relocating families not experienced previously. What used to be viewed as “wide-open” policies regarding mobility costs have come under more intense corporate scrutiny; costs that in the past were fully funded for the corporate transferee.
Increasing Cost
One mobility cost and benefit being affected is whether the family pet will be supported by corporate moving policies. With ever increasing costs across the entire spectrum of relocation, employers examine ways to either reduce the cost or completely eliminate what will be paid or reimbursed.
Scheduled passenger airlines, affected by reduced passenger loads and volumes as well as reductions in air cargo volumes, have addressed their operating costs by increasing live animal “accompanied baggage” fees, in addition to increasing live animal air cargo rates and charges.
Rather than increase costs across the board for either ticketed passenger charges or air cargo fees, increases in surcharges have been applied for fuel, as well as security screening costs as mandated by Congress effective August 1, 2010.
As costs rise on all economic fronts, decisions are made reducing funding allocations to all levels of relocation, with shorter assignments as well as reduced assignments and, coincidentally, with reduced numbers of family pets allowed relocation costs.
The relocation marketplace also saw new corporate programs being introduced, such as lump-sum relocation allowances, where the transferee makes selections based on approved service suppliers in the marketplace. Service providers have responded to current economic conditions with the creation of new relocation products.
New Practices
What used to be normality in providing door-to-door pet moving services has seen the development of modified programs; for example, an origin residence to destination service level absent residential delivery at destination; as well as airport-to-airport service levels to accommodate reduced financial resources available to transferees.
Over the years of moving thousands of pets, the policies outlining which pets are covered have remained essentially the same; dogs and cats are routinely covered, along with the occasional bird. What traditionally is not covered are tropical fish, the pocket pets—mice, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, rats, and rabbits—as well as pleasure horses.
The family pet provides the emotional “glue” to the family structure. Relocation brings stresses to the family with the pets providing emotional stability to the moving process.
The inclusion of family pets into the corporate relocation policies of those companies who transfer their career employees on a regular basis has brought benefits to all parties participating in the mobility process. Peace of mind, along with the reduction in stress in the relocation of many families, are direct benefits difficult to measure and quantify, yet remain valuable to the relocating family with pets.
Deciding what family pets are covered, the number of pets authorized to move, and what pet moving services are to be authorized through direct invoicing or reimbursement procedures, are challenges easily overcome through understanding the benefits that employing professional pet shippers bring to the relocation service industry.
Walter M. Woolf, V.M.D., is founder, principal owner, and managing director of Air Animal Pet Movers, Tampa, Florida. He can be reached at +1 813 879 3210 or e-mail petsfly@aol.com.