Pet trainers have a passion for animals and spend their days training dogs for obedience, agility, doing tricks, and playing games like Frisbee. Pet trainers are also responsible for behavior counseling, herding, and training service dogs. Dogs may also be trained for detecting drugs, guarding property, and locating missing people. A variety of risks come with being a pet training due to the working conditions: These include exposure to contaminants and animal waste, a bite from a dog, or an injury to a pet under your care. When training multiple dogs simultaneously, there’s also a risk that one pet owners dog could harm another. Pet trainers insurance helps to protect your risks as a pet trainer.
Types of Pet Trainer Insurance
You have a wide range of business insurance policies to choose from for your pet trainer business, including the following:
Pet Trainers General Liability Insurance
General liability insurance is a basic insurance policy for pet training businesses that includes completed operations, products liability, and bodily injury. If a customer is visiting your pet training business and gets bit by one of the dogs you’re training, they can sue you for damages. A general liability insurance policy will provide coverage for this situation. Completed operations include any claims that come after you have trained their pet, such as claiming you didn’t train them properly. Professional liability insurance is an important pet trainer’s insurance endorsement to consider.
Pet Trainers Bailee’s Insurance
As a pet trainer, many different animals are going to be in your custody, including dogs and horses. Even if you’re the best “dog whisperer” or “horse whisperer” in the business, if something was to happen to the animal while in your custody, you are responsible for the damage or loss. For example, if a horse gets severely ill or injured or dies while in your custody, you will have to pay to replace that horse. An insurance policy called Bailee’s Insurance can help you with replacement of animals as well as any veterinary care that may need to be administered.
Pet Trainers Products Liability Insurance
If you sell any type of pet or training supplies, which may include collars, leashes, canine treats, or similar products, you should get products liability insurance. Products liability protects your business from claims relating to the products you sell. If a retractable leash malfunctions and causes an injury to a dog or a leash comes unhooked and the dog runs off, is injured, or gets lost, you can be sued for damages. However, these costs won’t affect your business income if you have products liability insurance.
Pet Trainers Commercial Auto Insurance
As a pet trainer, you most likely use a company vehicle to pick up supplies, transport pet owners and their pets who you have trained, or take the animals to a pet park. The vehicle used is considered a company vehicle and therefore should be covered by a business policy. Insurance for pet trainers’ business auto policy will provide coverage for vehicle accidents, and includes vehicle damage and bodily injury, as well as other coverages like theft or vandalism of the vehicle.
Pet Trainers Cyber Liability Insurance
Your pet training business might also sell pet supplies from an online store, therefore you will need cyber liability insurance. Cyber crimes exist even when you take all the necessary precautions to secure your website. Hackers can get into even the toughest security measures, so having cyber liability insurance offers even more protection just in case this happens to one of your customers. Your business won’t be liable for the loss thanks to an cyber liability insurance policy.
Pet Trainers Business Property Insurance
Your business property is essential to training animals that come to you, therefore it should be protected from damage. Extreme weather conditions, natural disasters, fire, flood, or other types of unexpected events could do a number on your business property and cause you to close up business. However if you have business property insurance, you can help cover some of the costs and get the repairs completed faster so you get back to work in a shorter amount of time.
Pet Trainers Workers’ Compensation
Due to the unpredictable nature of animals, your pet trainers are at a very high risk of getting an injury at work, such as being bucked off a horse, bit by a dog, or scratched by a cat — even if your pet trainers are highly trained in handling animals. They could also get other injuries or illnesses at work, such as from slipping on mud while walking a horse to its stall or tripping over a long dog leash. To avoid being responsible for the worker’s medical bills and lost income, you should get worker’s compensation insurance. It will pay for diagnosis, treatment, labs, recovery, physical therapy, and lost income.
Pet Trainers Crime Insurance
You may think there aren’t many crimes to be committed when owning a pet training business, but you still risk crimes like vandalism of your business property, forged checks written for training services, or dishonest employees who steal money from your company. Crime insurance will help protect these and other crimes committed against you so you don’t have to cover the loss out-of-pocket.
As you can see, if you choose from these types of pet trainers’ insurance policies for your pet trainers business, you will be offering your business the best protection available. That way, if something like an employee or pet injury occurs, your business won’t suffer the consequences. You’ll also be able to focus on doing what you love – training pets.
