Pet Care Business Insurance

Coverage built around the animals in your care, your facility, staff, vehicles, and services.

Insurance guidance for California boarding and daycare facilities, groomers, mobile groomers, veterinarians, pet retailers, and eligible pet suppliers.

Pet-care insurance begins with custody, supervision, and the services performed.

Animal count, species, services, overnight boarding, group play, grooming, veterinary care, medications, transportation, property, employees, and emergency procedures can all affect eligibility and coverage.

We organize the submission around the actual operation, maximum animals in care, facility controls, staff qualifications, customer agreements, vehicles, property values, and loss history.

Pet businesses we can evaluate

Boarding & Daycare

Day and overnight care evaluated by capacity, group practices, staffing, facilities, species, and emergency procedures.

Pet Groomers

Bathing, clipping, styling, nail care, and related services evaluated by custody, equipment, and staff experience.

Mobile Groomers

Eligible vehicle-based grooming evaluated by vehicle, equipment, drivers, locations, utilities, and animal handling.

Veterinary Practices

Eligible veterinary offices evaluated by professional services, animals treated, equipment, staffing, and property.

Pet Supply Retailers

Retail stores evaluated by products, live animals if any, grooming or services, inventory, and premises.

Pet Suppliers

Eligible wholesale and distribution operations evaluated by products, storage, delivery, sales, and customer types.

Operational details that affect pet-care underwriting

  • Services, species, maximum animals in care, daily and overnight capacity, and annual sales
  • Group play, temperament screening, vaccination requirements, separation, supervision ratios, and staff training
  • Kennels, fencing, gates, ventilation, sanitation, fire protection, cameras, alarms, and emergency plans
  • Grooming equipment, dryers, restraints, medications, veterinary procedures, and professional qualifications
  • Customer agreements, waivers, incident documentation, animal release procedures, and record retention
  • Pickup, delivery, mobile grooming, owned vehicles, employee-owned autos, drivers, and transportation controls
  • Property, equipment, animal values, payroll, products sold, loss history, and catastrophe exposure

A Connected Pet Care Program

Coverage should follow the animals, services, property, employees, and vehicles.

Animal custody, professional services, premises, products, property, transportation, employees, and business interruption may require coordinated coverage parts.

01

Animal Bailee Coverage

Selected covered loss involving qualifying animals in the insured's care, custody, or control, subject to terms and limits.

Animals
02

General Liability

Eligible premises and operations liability, including covered bodily injury or property damage allegations.

Liability
03

Professional Liability

Selected allegations arising from defined grooming, veterinary, or other professional pet-care services.

Professional
04

Property & Business Income

Building or improvements, equipment, inventory, contents, and qualifying income interruption.

Property
05

Commercial Auto & HNOA

Mobile grooming, pickup and delivery, owned vehicles, and certain rented or employee-owned auto exposures.

Vehicles
06

Workers' Compensation

Employee injuries involving animals, lifting, grooming, cleaning, driving, and other duties.

Employees
07

Cyber & Crime

Customer information, payment systems, online scheduling, employee dishonesty, and selected cyber exposures.

Cyber
08

Umbrella or Excess

Additional limits over eligible underlying policies, coordinated with leases and contracts.

Limits

Animals in Your Care

Custody creates an exposure that ordinary property coverage may not address.

The operation should document maximum animals, animal values, species, services, locations, transportation, incident procedures, and the customer agreement governing custody.

Capacity and concentration

Maximum animals per day, overnight count, species, group sizes, and any high-value animals influence severity.

Screening and separation

Vaccinations, temperament, size, age, health, behavior, isolation, and group-play rules help control incidents.

Staffing and supervision

Ratios, training, experience, overnight staffing, camera use, checklists, and escalation procedures demonstrate control.

Emergency response

Fire, heat, escape, injury, illness, evacuation, veterinary contact, owner notification, and documentation plans matter.

Mobile operations add commercial-auto exposure

Vehicle ownership, conversion, permanently installed equipment, generators, water systems, drivers, radius, animal transport, and business interruption should be accurately described.

Professional liability depends on the service

Veterinary care, grooming, training, medication, and other services present different professional allegations. Covered services should match actual operations.

Preparing for Underwriting

A complete pet-care submission answers four questions.

Animal custody, supervision, facility, service, and transportation details help underwriters understand the real operation.

01

Which animals and services?

Species, capacity, boarding, daycare, grooming, veterinary, retail, transport, and annual sales.

02

How are animals supervised?

Screening, separation, ratios, training, overnight staffing, sanitation, and incident procedures.

03

What property and vehicles are exposed?

Facility, kennels, equipment, inventory, mobile units, owned vehicles, and animal values.

04

What must the program satisfy?

Leases, contracts, waivers, professional coverage, limits, claims, and renewal timing.

Documents to Prepare

Give the underwriter a complete picture.

Pet-care underwriting benefits from clear capacity, supervision, facility, vehicle, and customer-agreement information.

Operations

Services and animal care

Services, species, capacity, staffing, supervision, screening, sanitation, emergency plans, sales, and payroll.

Property

Facility and vehicles

Building details, kennels, fencing, protection, equipment values, mobile units, drivers, and transportation.

Insurance

Policies and losses

Current declarations and forms, five years of currently valued loss runs when available, customer agreement, and requested limits.

Request a Pet Care Review

Tell us which animals you care for and how the operation protects them.

Include services, species, maximum daily and overnight counts, staffing, facility controls, vehicles, equipment values, current carrier, loss runs, sales, payroll, and renewal date.

For a detailed submission with policy-specific fields, use the complete application.

Frequently Asked Questions

Questions pet-care businesses often ask.

What is animal bailee coverage?

Animal bailee coverage can address certain covered loss involving qualifying animals in the insured's care, custody, or control. Covered causes, per-animal and aggregate limits, valuation, exclusions, and services should be reviewed.

Does general liability cover injury to an animal in my care?

Not necessarily. Property in an insured's care, custody, or control may be limited or excluded under general liability. Animal bailee or specialized pet-care coverage may be needed.

Does a mobile groomer need commercial auto insurance?

Potentially. Vehicle ownership, business use, installed equipment, animal transportation, drivers, radius, and physical damage should be reviewed under an appropriate commercial-auto structure.

Can veterinary professional liability be included?

Potentially, depending on the operation, providers, services, licensing, claims history, and carrier. Professional liability should accurately identify the entity, professionals, and covered services.

What should a pet business prepare for an insurance review?

Prepare service descriptions, animal capacity, species, staffing, screening and supervision procedures, facility details, vehicle information, equipment values, customer agreements, current policies, loss runs, sales, payroll, and requested limits.

Reviewed by Aaron Smith — Founder, CEO & Principal Agent | Iron Mountain Insurance Agency, LLC | CA Agency License #6017299 | Last reviewed September 2026

Pet Care Business Insurance

Build the pet-care submission around animal custody, supervision, services, property, and transportation.

Request a Review