Deaths from falling out of bed in the US

From 2005 to 2021, bed-fall fatalities in the US and pet insurance policies grew together with an r of 0.9747, which raises several questions that medicine has yet to address. The most obvious explanation is that pets, emboldened by having insurance, are occupying an increasing share of the bed, thereby pushing humans toward the edge. Bed-fall deaths hover around 700-1,000 annually in the US; pet insurance policies grew from roughly 1 million to over 4 million. The pets are winning, and they have coverage.

Both statistics are driven by America's aging demographics and rising pet ownership culture. Deaths from falling out of bed are predominantly an elderly statistic — the CDC tracks these as falls-related mortality, which increases sharply with age and correlates with the growing 65+ population segment. Pet insurance growth reflects the 'pet humanization' trend and rising veterinary costs, as the same aging, affluent demographic that is more prone to bed falls also tends to own pets and insure them. Both track the same underlying demographic bulge moving through time.

Demographics are destiny, and they show up in every dataset simultaneously. The same population wave that fills pet insurance rolls also, quietly, fills certain other statistics — and the data does not look away.