Cat lover finds purr-fect post at Pet Insurance company.

LYNN Jacobs, whose avocation for the last 20 ears has been breeding and showing Persian cats, knew her new job as chief information officer at Veterinary Pet Insurance was a perfect fit when she brought her pregnant cat to the office.

"She gave birth on my table." Jacobs said.

The nation's 140 million pet dogs and cats go to the vet more than twice a year on average, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association's 2002 data. And just as with their human counterparts, medical care can be expensive.

The business model is the same as a human's medical insurance plan: enrollees pay $20 a month for coverage and have to meet a $50 deductible (for the average California dog) before the insurance kicks in. In the fourth quarter of 2004, the company said it wrote 80,000 renewals or new policies.

VPI saw gross revenues grow from $400,000 four years ago to $100 million last year, much of which Jacobs attributes to the Internet (now accounting for 42 percent of sales). "With the Internet, there's more awareness of our product and we can offer coverage to people in all 50 states," she said.

A daughter of an Air Force general, Jacobs was born in Munich and grew up on Air Force bases around the world. She graduated from Ohio State University in 1981 with a bachelor's in engineering, she moved to California where she worked on classified satellite programs until 1991.

She took a job at Universal Studios to get away from defense contracting, and oversaw technology as corporate director of motion picture and home entertainment. Then Steven Spielberg asked her to be chief information officer at Dreamworks SKG.

When her father was diagnosed with cancer in 1998, Jacobs moved to Seattle to be closer to family and took a job as the city's chief technology officer. She returned to L.A. in 2000 and worked as an IT consultant in the entertainment industry before joining VPI. Jacobs, 46, lives in Manhattan Beach with about a dozen cats.