Waggel, the pet insurance company, is capping its employee numbers at 100 and handing the rest of the work to artificial intelligence.
Andrew Leal, co-founder and chief executive of Waggel, which insures more than 200,000 pets in the UK, said that while he wants the company to be the “most human pet insurer” ever, he is setting a limit on recruitment to encourage his team to make more extensive use of AI tools.
“We think we’re operating very efficiently if we can keep it to about 100 people,” Leal said. “AI is never supposed to replace any of the people. It is supposed to make all their lives easier, so they can be a lot more friendly with our customers.”
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Waggel is growing quickly, has 95 employees and expects to hit 100 by the end of the year. Lean said his 100 limit is not “cast in stone” and that he would hire more people depending on the company’s needs. He also wants every customer interaction with Waggel to have humans involved, at least at some stage.
Last week Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder of Klarna, the Swedish buy now, pay later company, said AI has allowed the company to shrink its workforce from 7,400 people to about 3,000, while increasing revenues and customers.
Waggel launched an AI chatbot at the start of the year and it is now handling about 52 per cent of customer queries.
“As we teach [the chatbot] more and more, we don’t have to hire in more people, Leal said. “The chatbot can take more of the simpler questions — the more routine ones — and then [for] the more complicated stuff, that’s where the team can take it,” Leal said.
Waggel is also planning to use AI in its claims-handling process. Leal said he wants AI to be used to summarise customers’ medical notes that are sent to support an insurance claim. The claims handlers are all registered vet nurses assigned to each pet’s case.
“We don’t want [AI] to get to the point where it’s doing everything,” Leal said. “We want it to take away all those horrible little tasks that our claims handlers and our operations team have to focus on.”
Waggel was founded in 2018 by Leal and Ross Fretten, who had appeared on the BBC television series The Apprentice in the same year. Neither had experience in insurance before creating the business. The company generated revenues of £11 million in 2024 and is projecting £15 million for 2025.
It offers a “lifetime” policy that covers a pet’s ongoing conditions for their whole lives. Annual limits range from £1,000 to £15,000, with up to £2 million in third-party liability if a dog injures someone or causes damage.