646: What Should Your Pet Sitting Insurance Really Cover?
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Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
Are you covered for what you actually do today—not what you did last year? We walk through our annual insurance review. We cover the “must-haves”, when bonding makes sense, and why non-owned auto and business property matter once you add staff or an office. We also explain what petsitting business insurance does not cover—and how workers’ comp and personal health insurance fit in. Finally, we share practical risk-management habits and the customer-service “intangibles” we expect from any insurer.
Main topics:
Core coverage essentials
Care, custody & control
Non-owned auto protection
Workers’ comp vs. health
Risk management habits
Main takeaway: “Insurance is not about fear. It’s about good stewardship of the pets, of the homes, and the trust that the clients place in us.”
We build our business on trust, which means planning for real-world moments—not pretending they won’t happen. The right coverage protects pets, homes, neighbors, employees, and yes, you. It also lets us say to clients with confidence: if something goes wrong, we have a plan and a policy. That’s professional care, not hobby care—and it’s why our annual insurance checkup matters.
Links:
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Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Business insurance, pet sitters, policy review, general liability, care custody control, business property, non-owned auto, workers compensation, personal health insurance, customer service, risk management, coverage limits, employee coverage, insurance checkup, trust and transparency
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:01
We recently posted about renewing our business insurance, and someone asked a great question, what do you actually look for when reviewing your policy? That got us thinking, most pet sitters know they need insurance. It's critical, right? But few really know what to look for beyond price. So today we're walking you through exactly what we evaluate every year, not as insurance experts, keep in mind, but as business owners who've learned through experience what matters most for protecting our clients, our team and ourselves. Hi, I'm Megan. I'm Collin. We are the hosts of pet sitter confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you to our podcast sponsor today, of pet sitters associates. We'd also like to thank our Patreon supporters who find value in the show. Love to listen each week and want to give a little bit back. If you enjoy listening to the podcast. Want to keep it going, you can go to pet sitter confessional.com/support, to see each way that you can help out. And we appreciate them all. Thank you so much. Before we dive in, a quick note, pet sitters Associates is a sponsor for this podcast, but this episode is not connected to them in any way. We're not reviewing or promoting any specific company here. We're simply sharing how we think through our insurance each year, what we check for, what we ask, and what we've learned to pay attention to as our business has grown so obviously, pet business liability insurance renews every year. It's on a 12 month policy, and you so it is important to re evaluate it each year you go to look at it. You just don't want to have the same policy. Year after year. You do different things in your business. You offer different services. You have employees or not, you want different coverages. And so it is important to look at it and read it and know exactly what you are purchasing every year. We know that coverage that fits when you're solo may not fit with a team or when you have an office space, so reviewing your policy each year is about stewardship, not paranoia. It's how you make your coverage still match the work you actually do.
Collin 01:55
So when we sit down to renew our insurance each year, we start by reviewing the foundational coverage. What is the basics of what we have? These are what we believe to be the non negotiables that every pet sitting, every dog walking business should have. These are the policies that if something unexpected happens, they keep a bad day from becoming a devastating one or a financial ruinous one. So the first one is just the general liability. These are your broad oops coverage. It protects against property damage related to your business. So for example, here, if you overflow a sink or toilet or damage furniture while cleaning up a mess, or your phone slips off a counter and cracks the tile floor, it's not negligence here, it's just life. These things happen. General Liability keeps both your client and your business protected when those everyday accidents happen. This is the coverage that steps in. It's about owning responsibility for what happens in your care, not what's just convenient to you. And these are what we think a lot about, what's the worst, not the worst case scenario, but what are the things that are going to take place, or could take place through the general function and flow of a visit, of a dog walk, of interacting in people's homes around their belongings and with their furry family members? Probably
Meghan 03:14
the most essential coverage for your pet care business and for pet care professionals in general, is the care, custody and control. This protects your clients, pets and property while they're in your care. So if you're on a walk and a dog twists an ankle or a cat escapes through a cracked door, this helps cover medical treatment or replacement costs. It's really what separates the professional care from the hobby sitters. They're not thinking about this, but you do need to be thinking what could happen when I do this visit. So the care, custody and control, is pretty simple to think about. What happens when a pet is in your care. Then we get into the bonding aspect of this. It's about trust and transparency. Are you going to steal jewels? Are your employees going to take their car for a joy ride? Well, obviously, no, but it covers theft or dishonesty, and it reassures that client that In the rare event that something goes missing, there's a process to make it right. We don't carry it because we expect problems where we don't hire people that are going to be negligent about this or steal things. We don't hire those kind of people, but we carry it because clients deserve to know that their trust is backed by accountability. You can trust us. And here is a reason why.
Collin 04:28
Something that we've had to start looking into, especially as we've gotten an office and an office space, and we have things that go in that is we have to rent this so we have to have a level of business property coverage. This covers the physical items that keep our business running, that we use in the office space. So yeah, the office, if you have signage, if you have a dedicated computer, if you have keys, if you have equipment, even though we're not a boarding facility, our rented office needs to have this. We have to have proof that we have this, and it belongs to us, because it houses our operational backbone. One, right? This is where all of our stuff goes, and this is really important to us. It's what keeps us functioning smoothly if theft, storms or damages occur, and the person we're renting it from just wants us to have this to make sure that we can prove that if something happens while in our rented space, it's going to be taken care of. So it's kind of like renter's insurance, but for your business. Exactly the other type of coverage that we've had to really start learning a lot more about is non owned auto many pet care companies like ours rely on our employees to use their personal vehicles to go between visits if they get into an accident on the way to a client's home. What happens? Who's responsible their personal policy may not cover the business use. That's where this coverage comes in. It protects both the employee and us from that liability. Specifically, in many cases, the non own auto will kick in and go above and beyond any basics or anything past the personal responsibility of that insurance policy. But again, this is where you have to double check and make sure what you what coverages your employees have. Do they have the minimums for your state? Are they keeping up to date with that? All of these are things that we have to think about. And each each one of these coverages is just another layer of protection in our businesses. It's, again, it's not because we expect things to go wrong. It's because we will operate in the real world. Real things happen. Real mistakes happen. There will be negligence at times, accidents happen. Insurance is not about fear, as we've already said, it's about good stewardship of the pets, of the homes and the trust that the clients place in us.
Meghan 06:43
Now, of course, there's a discussion here about how much of these things do you purchase, and that really is up to you. Is that going to be $10,000 25,000 100,000 What are you comfortable with? Because it does seem kind of all amorphous of well, okay, what's really the difference between 25,050 1000, when I hope to never use this and I don't really know what something like that is going to cost,
Collin 07:07
yeah. Well, so here you just have to assess your risks. Okay, if you have a lot of team members in the field, you probably need to have a lot of coverage. Are you going into a lot of multi pet households? Probably need a lot of care, custody and control. Are you going into a lot of very expensive and very nice, fancy homes? Probably need to upper coverage is there. I mean, you can look at these policies and look at these claims that people have had over the years, and just re keying a home if you lose a key, can be 1000s of dollars, depending on the kind of locks that they have and the kind of doors that they have. So really look at how you're operating and what you're doing, the more risky things that you're doing. So you have to look at, okay, what kind of big, long adventure hikes Am I taking on? Am I transporting pets? Am I covered for that? All of these things are added risks to your business, and then you, as the business owner, have to sit down and go, What are you willing to take on personally? Because that's where this gets down to. If you do not have the proper insurance coverages for your business, you will be held holding the bag. You will be held responsible to pay for those bills out of your pocket. And that's the balance that we have. It does. It's more costly to have more coverage, but in the long term, do we expect that to cover us and protect us more with our business, given how we operate in the things that we do? Now, here's what's really important to know, is that what we've just talked about, there are many things that are still not covered and that we have to assess and make sure that we are taken care of. Yeah,
Meghan 08:38
the most important part that people don't realize is that pet sitting insurance covers damage to pets and property and third parties, but not you, the business owner or your employees if you have them. So this means that it covers pets if they're injured or lost in your care, if a dog accidentally opens that front door and bolts out, it's covered. It also covers a client's property. If you damage something in their home, you break their garbage disposal, you ruin their oven, or something happens like that.
Collin 09:05
You don't put the dog in the kennel when the client specifically told you to, and the dog eats through all of the drywall. This is what covers
Meghan 09:11
that third parties are covered if a passerby or neighbor gets injured due to a pet you're handling, but again, if you slip on the ice and break your wrist, or if your employee is out on a walk, twist their ankle, fractures themselves, or if they get bitten your pet sitting policy does not cover that. For that, you will need two other forms of protection. One is workers compensation, very important, it covers medical bills and lost wages if an employee gets injured while working. It's often legally required once you hire staff. I know that in our state it was starting at five employees, then it was required. We got it from day one. But other states, it may be required from day one,
Collin 09:50
yeah, when you have one employee. And here's also what's important, here is that you can add yourself to your workers compensation insurance. Again, some look at your state policies, your state. State laws and what is required, but also think about what's best practices for you and what your policy allows you to do. Just because something is required by law, that doesn't mean that it's actually best practice or what you need to make sure that you are
Meghan 10:15
covered. Another policy that you're going to need to protect you is personal health insurance. It covers you, the owner, for illness or non work injuries, and it fills the gap if you're not covered by workers comp. So it is important to have
Collin 10:27
also specifically look into and make sure that it will cover work related injuries, because sometimes we think, Well, I don't have workers compensation for my covering with me for the business. I'll just use my personal insurance if I do get bit or if I do break my clavicle falling down the stairs, but many policies will actually exclude a business related or work related injuries from coverage because they expect there to be additional coverage on top of that. So while you are assessing your business coverage, always look at your personal health insurance to see what coverages you do or do not have. And then what we do is we look and we find where those gaps are, and then we think, how do I cover that? And many people fall into the well, I'll just have to personally insure myself, as in, I don't have insurance to cover that. It's too costly to cover that. I'll just pay the bills if and when they come
Meghan 11:18
up. So think of it this way, pet sitting insurance protects what belongs to the client. Workers Comp and health insurance protects what belongs to us. Understanding those distinctions is going to help us avoid nasty surprises and make sure that everyone in our business, human and animal is properly protected. And speaking of insurance, we'd like to tell you about our friends at pet sitters, associates as a pet sitter, you know how much trust goes into caring for someone's furry family member. Family member, but who's got your back for over 25 years, pet sitters Associates has been helping pet care pros like you with affordable, flexible insurance coverage, whether you're walking dogs, pet sitting or just starting out. They make it easy to protect your business. Get a free quote today at petsit llc.com as a listener, you get $10 off your membership when you use code confessional at checkout, that's petsit llc.com, because your peace of mind is part of great pet care.
Collin 12:07
When we're reviewing our insurance policies and coverage, we also want to make sure that we're understanding what the intangibles are, and a really big one here is customer service and accessibility. Your coverage is only as good as the people behind it. Can you get a hold of somebody if there's an issue? What if you have questions about what your policy does or does not coverage based off of what a client asks you to do when something happens? We personally, we don't want to fight through menus or wait days for a callback or sit there waiting for an email to hit our inbox. We want somebody real to talk to, and we want it fast so we evaluate insurers based off of their ease of contact. Can we reach a live human when it really counts? Clarity also is really important. Here do they explain claims and coverage in plain language? Can I when I get off the phone with somebody, do I have a better understanding, or am I more confused based off of my situation than I was before. And then how quickly do they respond and provide answers or certificates or policy changes? Again, when you have that client reach out to you and they ask you, can you take care of my pet reindeer? How are you going to find that out? I've looked at our insurance policy, I think I understand what a lot of it covers and doesn't coverage, but there are specifics, and they will be able to help us walk through exactly what we need and where we point to so that we know that we're covered. We believe that good customer service isn't a luxury, it's actually part of our risk management. The faster that we can talk to someone, the faster that we can act, the faster we can document and we can take care of our clients and make sure that everybody is protected,
Meghan 13:44
because our business constantly changes, new employees, new service area, new services offering, new partnerships, new whatever we want to do in our business, so we have to make sure that our coverage keeps pace as well every 12 months, we always ask ourselves, does our policy still match what we actually do? Did we add something in the past 12 months that is going to change what, how much we need to buy of this thing? Well?
Collin 14:07
Or it could have just been that a client started asking us to do something for them. It was just the one client that we were doing it, and then we kind of got this little creep of well, because I was doing it for this one client or this other client, and now I've got five or six or 10 clients that I'm doing this for, but we never stop to check to see are we actually insured
Meghan 14:26
for that? That can definitely happen with pet taxi services or enrichment visits or extended overnights that need to be covered. Are your employees fully included for your limits? We had to ask ourselves that, do we need to up it this year, because we have more employees, transparency and flexibility here really matter. The more honest that we are with our insurer, the fewer surprises there are when it counts. Now, of course, insurance is not cheap. It's not and we looked at the bill this year and went, ah, we had to up some things, and it was more expensive and it wasn't entirely. Really a fun experience, but we know that even if one thing happens in our business, we are going to need this. This is essential. So yes, the bill is high, but if one thing happens, we don't want to be in a lurch of having to pay 50 times more than what we pay for our policy,
Collin 15:19
right? Well. And so there are two aspects to this too, and I think it's a really good idea. Each time that you renew, not only look at your coverage, look at your policies, make sure that you are are covered in the ways that you need to be covered for your business, with limits that make sense to you. And again, it is frustrating, because whenever you look at insurance, like you said earlier, Megan, like these numbers, they don't make a whole lot of sense. And you can kind of feel like, well, I don't know what's a good number, what's quote enough for me, and it is a little bit of back and forth. And being, again, working with a good insurance provider, they're gonna be able to help walk you through coverages that you actually need, and not just try and sell you on things, but on the one hand, of while we are doing this insurance assessment and making sure that we have the coverage and everything's in alignment. Meg and I are also on the other side of the risk management here, going, what about our business and how we operate? Can we change to limit the likelihood that we're going to use the insurance? So we're also going to be talking about, what are our training protocols for our new employees? What kind of clients are we taking on? Have we found that we're taking on all of these kind of behaviorally risky or like temperamental people and dogs that we're kind of maybe a little on the edge of our expertise, and we need to pull back from them before something actually happens, or the complexity of visits, or the kind of driving that we're doing, or the kind of services that we're offering, what can we do about our business to reduce and constantly pull back from the edge the liability and likelihood that we're going to have to file a claim? So that's when, at the time of renewal, is a fantastic time to do both of these things. Look at your coverages, and then look at the risks that you're actually exposed to, and make sure that you have a good handle and control on both of those.
Meghan 17:03
When you are considering your insurance provider, you have to think about their reputation and reliability, so we pay attention to the company's real world track record. Are they vetted by other peers, other professional pet sitters or professional organizations? Peer feedback from psi and naps and other professionals is often more valuable than really online reviews, a company that supports sitters during a stressful moment earns that loyalty, earns that trust. So we ask around, how do they handle a claim for another sitter? Did they communicate well? Were they fair? Did they just drop you because of one instance that really wasn't they didn't have to pay out very much, or did they stick out through the long haul?
Collin 17:43
Or were they concerned with educating you about the insurance coverage? How did they handle that communication? Again, all of these are what we would consider intangibles. They don't go into an insurance policy. They're not going to write these things down and have you sign on a dotted line. But experientially, this is the real world application. This is boots on the ground. I'm not dealing with a piece of paper. I have to deal with a person at the end of this and make sure that I'm taken care of and fully understand what's going on.
Meghan 18:10
Because it can be confusing. Sometimes. Insurance is this big, scary thing that we don't really know a lot about, but we know we need it. There are some common mistakes that sitters like us have made, we have made these pitfalls ourselves. The first one being assuming that homeowner's insurance covers you. It doesn't,
Collin 18:27
yeah, it won't cover you personally here, okay, it may pay for the replacement cost of property or something like that, but for you, homeowners insurance wouldn't expect that to be there. Additionally, from a business perspective, we are that we would then be assuming and putting the liability on our clients to take care of us and things if something happens. From a client perspective, that's a that's not a good thing to do, and just say, well, client, if I break something, you're on the hook for it. Thanks for having homeowners insurance.
Meghan 19:01
It's also a bad idea to let your policy auto renew without reading the updates again. We've, we've got to bang this hammer of you have to look at it every year. It is very important
Collin 19:10
well, because sometimes they may update the policy. And there's a little section that's called the exclusions of what don't they cover, what is not covered under this. And updates can happen there that, let's say you didn't change how your business operates at all, but the insurance policy now has included some things that they no longer cover, that you still provide. And this is where people can get really in a lurch, because the policy that you bought five years ago and have auto renewed every year for the last five years, the policy can change, even though you haven't. And so reading the policy, making sure you understand it and it's here's the best way to do this. Okay, print off your not print off. Wait, save a PDF of your policy, throw it into chat GPT and ask some questions about it. Tell chat how you operate. Tell them the service that you. Offer, how you're structured, all of that stuff, and have a back and forth. Best case scenario is actually to talk to the human of the policy and the business that you're working with. But if you don't have that, if you can't get that, throw your policy into chat and ask some good questions.
Meghan 20:14
It can also be very tempting to choose the cheapest option and ignore the coverage limits. When it was Collin and I, and we didn't have any employees. We did do that for the first couple years of going well, I don't really, I know I need this, but I don't really want to pay a bunch of money. It's just Collin and I, we're not going to do anything. Nothing's going to happen. Everything's going to be fine. So we're just going to click some the cheapest options and be done with it. We'll say we have insurance, and then we're covered.
Collin 20:38
It's fine. Yep, it's one thing to say you have insurance another to be fully covered for problems, and whenever you do choose the cheapest option, you've got to pay attention to what those limits are, because some of them are shockingly low and won't actually cover you. If anything substantial or anything moderately substantial happens again, then who pays that bill? You you personally do. You personally would pay for those bills. And many of us would go, Well, I can't afford to pay sort of somebody's broken clavicle, you know, 50, $60,000 Exactly. That's why we have the coverages that we do. It
Meghan 21:12
can also be a mistake to fail to verify employee coverage when your team grows. Okay? So you have 10 employees now, last year you only had four so how is your policy going to differ? Now, do you need to up your coverages, or are you okay?
Collin 21:26
Or maybe you got into a really tight spot in the summertime and you were really, really busy and you were really slammed, and you did a quick hire to bring somebody on to start taking on visits and helping you out, but you never went back and actually looked at your insurance coverage or clicked a little button that said, Now I have employees, and this is going to make my bill go up. These things of it just happens are what end up putting a lot of business owners at severe risk, because as they operate their business and things change, they're not also commensurately over here, working with the insurance and the coverages to make sure that they are in tandem and working
Meghan 22:01
well. Insurance is not just paperwork. It can feel like it sometimes, but it's really the safety net for your business's reputation. Our businesses are built on trust, and that this is the cornerstone of that trust of you don't have client, you don't have to worry about this. I've got this covered if something happens, because ultimately, our insurance is about peace of mind for our clients. It's what allows us to say, you can trust us. And I mean it when I say that, because we've planned, we prepared, we've protected what matters most to them.
Collin 22:31
Well. And again, many people may say, and I've actually seen this on comments before of well, why do you promote having insurance isn't that reckless? Because that means that you're planning on something bad happening. Why would you promote about how well you're insured when you just don't do those bad things? And I think this is a common misconception about what the purpose of this is. It's not saying, Well, yes, I like breaking things in my client's home, so I have a lot of insurance to coverage. My proclivities for breaking vases. What we're actually saying is no client you can trust me that I have everything taken care of from beginning to end, and any problems are taken care of. It's also why we insist on being pet first aid and CPR certified. It's not that we plan on doing all of these things or having accidents to pets, but we want to be ready when something happens. We want our employees to be ready. We want everybody from beginning to end, so that when there's a problem, the clients don't have to worry that that is all the liability, all of the problems, all the concern is what we are taking on in our business, so that the clients can leave and know fully it's all handled.
Meghan 23:40
Insurance isn't glamorous. Obviously, this episode not a glamorous episode, and it's definitely not why we got into pet care, but it is a part of what separates professionals from hobbyists. It's one of those behind the scenes commitments that nobody really sees, and yes, we should be talking about, but nobody really cares if you have 25,000 versus 50,000 of coverage until something happens, and then they're going to want to see your policy, and they're going to want to know that you are insured. It does give us the freedom to focus on what matters, which is caring for the pets, supporting our team, giving clients peace of mind. So we want to encourage you to do your own insurance checkup. First of all, ask yourself, Do I have insurance check number one? But then after that, can I easily reach my insurer? Do I understand my care, custody and control limits? Does my policy reflect my current services and my team? Do I have enough workers compensation or health insurance for my staff or myself? And then what's the last time I actually read my policy, line by line? It's not fun. Make sure you have coffee when you read it. But it is important to do. You don't need to be an expert at this or add insurance. You just need to be aware, because awareness is really what keeps you protected. We'd love to hear your thoughts about this and anything about insurance. You can email us at Pet Sitter confessional@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. Thank you for listening today. We know this again, was not a glamorous episode, but we appreciate you taking your time, your most valuable asset. Thank you also to pet sitters, associates and our Patreon supporters, and we will talk with you next time bye. You you.
