When I was testing the waters to see if there was a need for dog walkers in my area, I did not have any dog walker insurance. ~GASP!~

In fact, I had no idea that it was needed until I started to do more research into starting my actual dog walking business.

After a little bit of research with Google and helpful Facebook groups, I quickly realized that you definitely need insurance for dog walking.

Why Do dog walkers need insurance?

One word comes to mind.

Liability.

You are taking care of someone else’s dog outside of their house and you just never know what could happen. 

A dog could get hurt at the dog park or on a walk, or even worse go missing.

The truth is, you don’t know what scenario you will encounter when you are out and about with your dogs, so it’s in your best interest to have insurance to cover any instances that may arise.

Take a look at this scenario by sportydogwalker.com and see if it resonates with you as it did me:

You’re at the park walking your dogs. One of them poops, so you swoop in and do your dog walker duty by scooping it up. While you’re taking care of the poop another person walks by with their dog.

Now, most city dogs are friendly and relatively harmless. However, we’ve all met dogs that are just plain mean for whatever reason. This particular dog walking by you just happens to be that kind.

No sooner are you throwing the poop in the trash than one of your dogs lets out a yelp. You whirl around to find the mean dog attacking your dog while his owner is trying unsuccessfully to restrain him.

You jump in and break the dogs up. Your dog is ok but she’s bleeding and might need stitches.

The owner of the dog that attacked the one under your care claims it was your dog that attacked his first, arguing his dog was just defending himself. You find that hard to believe but the owner doesn’t budge.

Meanwhile, your dog is bleeding and needs to go to the vet. This is the stuff dog walker nightmares are made of.

You give up trying to reason with the dog owner and take your dog to the vet. It turns out she does need stitches, which results in a costly medical bill.

So, who’s going to pay the bill?

You report the incident to the dog owner. She becomes enraged, claiming that because the dog was in your care at the time of the accident the injury was due to your negligence.

She refuses to pay the bill. The owner of the dog that bit yours claims that it was not his fault. He also refuses to pay the bill.

This could mean that you’re on the hook for the bill.

It’s too late by then to think of insurance. But you should have known what dog walkers insurance could have done for you.

Let’s look at the different types of insurance that can protect you as the dog walker in this sort of situation.

What does Liability Insurance Cover?

General liability Protects against accidental injury to others, including pets, or accidental property damage.

For example, after a theft occurs at a customer’s home, the customer sues you with allegations that you failed to lock the house after walking their dog. Or a dog you’re walking breaks loose from you, darts into traffic causing an accident, and you are sued for being negligent in controlling the dog.

Having general liability insurance will make sure that you are protected against:

• Injuries inflicted on other dogs by the dogs in your care.
• Injuries inflicted on people by the dogs in your care.
• Any property damage caused by the dogs in your care.

It is highly recommended that all dog walking businesses have general liability insurance.

General liability insurance is the bare minimum coverage your dog walking business should have.

Additional Dog Walking Insurance coverage you should consider

Professional Liability

Protects professionals, who offer expert advice or services, against lawsuits from their clients.

While general liability insurance will cover your business to protect you against injury or property damage, it won’t protect you against claims of damage from your professional advice.

If your business offers strictly dog walking and pet sitting services, this sort of coverage may not be required.

However, if part of your business is offering instruction and advice to clients, then you will likely want to consider professional liability insurance

Care, Custody, and Control

As the name suggests, the benefit of this coverage is most useful when a dog in your care, your custody, or your control is injured, goes missing, or on extremely rare occasions, dies.

With insurance in place, any vet bills that occur because of the incident are covered.

Non-Negligent Cover

Like Care, Custody, and Control cover, with one small difference.

This protects you should an animal in your care suffer an injury that was not your fault. Vet bills and any subsequent compensation to the pets’ owners will be taken care of by your insurance policy.

Equipment Cover

Dog walking equipment may be limited to leads, collars, and little else, but protecting what you do use is important.

Having suitable equipment cover in place means that if you suffer damage or loss of your tools of the trade, you could be eligible to make a claim.

Loss of Keys Cover

You may take responsibility for the keys to the property of your clients. Although small, losing keys to a property could have big consequences if you need to get in.

Firstly, replacing the locks that will need to be broken to get into the property doesn’t come cheap. Secondly, you will need to get new keys cut to operate the new locks that are put in place.

Furthermore, it may be that by breaking into a property an intruder alarm is set off. If the alarm needs professional attention to be reset, your policy will cover the costs, as well as the cost of new locks and replacement keys.

Bonding Insurance

Bonding insurance is a type of coverage that you will need to consider if you have employees working for you and spending time in your clients’ homes.

This type of coverage will protect you against potential losses caused by fraud, theft, or incompetence by one of your employees.

For dog walking businesses, bonding insurance is primarily used to protect against a client accusing one of your employees of theft. If such a situation arises your bonding insurance will cover most, if not all, of the cost of the theft claim.

Bonding insurance also offers peace of mind to your clients.

It can be slightly unnerving for homeowners to have strangers inside their homes while they’re absent. This type of insurance will let them know that they are covered in case anything happens while they’re gone and you’re delivering services.

It gives you an enormous advantage with customers who are only starting to investigate dog walking as a service to hire during their work hours because it shows them that you are prepared to be allowed in their home while they’re out of the house.

How much is dog walker insurance?

It’s unrealistic for me to give you an actual cost because we all require different levels of coverage, live in different areas, and may choose different insurance companies.

So here’s what I will do, I will link to a couple of dog walker insurance online quoting websites and you can fill in your information to receive a quote that accurately reflects the services that you need.

Dog Walker Insurance Canada:

Profur

Professional Coverage

Zensurance

Dog Walker Insurance USA:

Thimble

Next Insurance

General Liability

Have you made the leap and purchased dog walking insurance? If so, please comment what types of services you perform and insurance coverage you chose, we would love to hear from you!

References

https://www.protectivity.com/what-insurance-do-i-need-for-a-dog-walking-business/

https://www.scoutforpets.com/blog/do-i-need-insurance-to-be-a-dog-walker/

https://profur.ca/dog-walkers/