Jean-Philippe Doumeng | CEO & Co-Founder, Napo
How Napo rebuilt pet insurance from the ground up—by keeping claims in-house, designing tech around empathy, and rejecting the race-to-the-bottom playbook that defines most of the category.
Jean-Philippe Doumeng is the co-founder and CEO of Napo Pet Insurance. After years working in human digital health, he turned his attention to pet insurance—driven by first-hand frustration with a system that consistently failed pet parents when they needed it most.
In this conversation, Doumeng breaks down how hundreds of interviews with vets, pet parents, and claims handlers led to a ground-up rebuild of the category, why Napo keeps claims fully in-house, and how a care-first tech stack is changing what pet insurance can—and should—look like.
What inspired you to start Napo?
Before starting Napo, I’d spent years working in digital health for humans—first as co-founder at Tictrac, then leading business development at Babylon Health during its hypergrowth phase. That experience gave me a deep appreciation for the power of technology to reshape traditional industries, and I became increasingly fascinated by insurtech as a space. I followed companies like Lemonade and Alan Health closely: they were building insurance companies people actually wanted to use, and that really inspired me.
At the same time, I experienced first-hand how broken the pet insurance market was with my dog, Napoleon (“Napo”). Policies were full of fine print, confusing exclusions, and delays that failed pet parents at the exact moment they needed help. Meanwhile, pets had become family—but insurance hadn’t caught up.
That disconnect became the catalyst for Napo. We set out to build the insurer we’d want for our own pets: comprehensive, fast, and fair. No hidden catches. No compromises. And importantly, not just focused on claims, but on giving pet parents peace of mind—from everyday support to life’s most difficult moments.
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