We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve partnered with Barkly Pets, an on-demand dog walking service that matches a network of truly pet-loving professionals with pet owners, all through an app. By partnering with Barkly Pets, we are going to help their community of dog walkers save time and money on health, dental, vision, life, accident, and disability insurance.

Barkly Pets: On-demand Dog Walking + Much More

Founded in 2015, Barkly Pets was created out of a real problem three friends and neighbors were facing. Chris Gonzalez, Dave Comiskey, and Jim Camut, co-founders of Barkly Pets, oftentimes found themselves relying on each other to offer last minute care for each other’s dogs. They found it difficult to find pet care at the last minute that was affordable, trustworthy, and reliable. Instead of just relying on each other, they developed Barkly Pets. Barkly serves New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, all while boasting the highest rated dog walking app out there.

Barkly Pets really prioritizes their walkers. Not only do they offer world class support to their walkers 24/7, they also offer industry leading commissions and on-the-job insurance that covers medical bills in case of accident or injury.

Barkly Pets is continuing to further prioritize their walkers by partnering with Stride Health. Together, we are going to help them take care of their walkers, just like their walkers take care of the dogs they walk; we will get their walkers signed up for insurance and help them take care of their taxes so they can get back to the important stuff!

Health Insurance—A Confusing, Expensive Problem for Independent Workers

Health care costs are on the rise and have been for years. As they continue to go up, picking the right plan has never been more important - or more stressful and confusing. There are deadlines to meet, tons of plans to compare, subsidies to qualify for, and a million confusing terms: What is a metal tier? What’s the difference between copayments and coinsurance? What’s better—an HMO or a PPO?. People who work for themselves face complicated application processes and often pay more than they should for health insurance because they aren’t familiar with subsidies that can decrease their costs. More often than not, they’re left with no guidance when it comes to making these important decisions, and that means they’re spending a lot of time trying to figure out health insurance—time that could be better spent walking some dogs (and earning a living).

That’s where Stride comes in: we make it easy for independent workers to find health coverage that fits their needs. To get help finding insurance, Barkly walkers will answer a few questions, receive a tailored plan recommendation, find out what money-saving subsidies they are eligible to receive, and get enrolled in coverage, all within 10 minutes.

Looking Beyond Health Insurance

Stride won’t only be helping the walkers on Barkly’s platform with health insurance. Through Stride, they can easily sign up for dental and vision plans designed specifically for independent workers. However, most independent workers want to go even further and work to protect their financial wellness. For those people, Stride offers life, accident, and disability insurance, as well as an app that helps them track their expenses so they get all the money-saving deductions they deserve at tax time.

As Stride continues to grow, we will continue to develop and introduce new tools for independent workers. In the meantime, our award-winning, live-person concierge team will be standing by to help these walkers get answers to their questions so they can get back to doing what they want to be doing.

Learn more about these and other benefits for Barkly walkers at http://stride.care/barklypets.