Business insurance protects pet store owners from the financial fallout of several risks. Pet shops should have the following policies, at minimum:
- General liability insurance. Pays for injury or property damage claims from non-employees, plus associated legal costs.
- Commercial property insurance. Covers your building, inventory, tanks, cages, computers and shelving.
- Animal mortality insurance. Pays if live inventory dies from covered causes. Standard commercial property typically excludes animals.
- Workers' compensation. Pays for medical bills and lost wages for employees hurt on the job. Nearly every state requires it once you have employees.
If your shop also provides care for animals, such as a grooming or boarding service, you need animal bailee coverage.
Most pet stores should likely start with a business owner’s policy. This combines general liability and commercial property coverage. Packaging these policies is typically cheaper than buying them separately.
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Best business insurance for pet stores
NerdWallet’s editorial team chooses the best business insurance based on factors like:
- Relative number of complaints policyholders make to state regulators.
- How financially strong companies are, or how well they can pay claims.
- Whether you can get a quote and buy a policy online.
We reviewed the top carriers and specialty insurers for policies tailored for pet shops. NerdWallet recommends comparing multiple quotes to find the best coverage at the best price.
Aim to get all your coverage from the same provider. This approach is especially useful if you mix retail with professional services. It can ease gray areas — like a dog in your care gets loose and hurts itself (animal bailee) and a customer in your store (general liability).
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Chubb
Chubb is our top pick for a business owner’s policy. It can tailor coverage for pet stores, groomers, veterinarians and other pet care businesses. You can add on animal bailee, kennel cough coverage and pet care errors and omissions coverage.
If your shop makes less than $2 million in revenue annually, you can get a quote and potentially buy a policy online. However, Chubb doesn’t sell commercial auto insurance. If you’ll need that coverage, such as for a mobile groomer van, you’ll have to buy it separately. Read our review of Chubb.
The Hartford
The Hartford offers multiple customizations pet shop owners might want. For instance, you can tailor a pet retail policy to pay for property damage animals cause. You can also get animal bailee insurance, which covers any pets in your care (such as a grooming service).
The Hartford gets relatively few complaints for its size for business liability products. You may be able to get a quote online. However, to buy a policy you’ll have to speak with an agent by phone. Read our review of The Hartford.
Travelers
Perhaps the most recognizable insurer to provide pet industry coverage, Travelers is a major business insurance provider. It sells add-on coverage to its BOPs for pet grooming and boarding kennel liability, protection for animals in your care and medication spoilage. It offers a full suite of business policies like cyber, employee dishonesty and umbrella policies too.
Travelers also gets relatively few complaints for its size, but you can’t get a quote or buy a policy online. If you need to file a claim, you may be able to do some parts online. Others might require your agent. Read our review of Travelers.
Why do pet stores need insurance?
Insurance helps pay for accidents, allegations and damage a pet store owner would normally be responsible for. It covers risks such as:
- A puppy bites a customer’s child, and they sue.
- While grooming a customer's dog, your employee accidentally injures her.
- A customer slips on a wet floor in the store and falls.
- Your HVAC fails during a heatwave, wiping out an entire room of reptiles.
- A disease outbreak kills your fish inventory.
- A cat treat you sold is recalled, but not before sickening your customers’ pets.
- An aquarium leak damages neighboring tenants’ spaces.
- Your employee falls feeding the fish on the very top row of aquariums, needing medical care.
- A fire destroys your building and inventory.
Without insurance, your business would need to pay for these costs. It would also be responsible for any legal fees and judgments in the event of a related lawsuit.
What types of insurance policies do pet stores need?
To be fully covered, your pet store will need several policies.
General liability insurance
General liability coverage pays for injury or property damage claims from non-employees, including customers, vendors and visitors. It also covers advertising injury, such as libel or slander about a competitor, causing them to lose money.
It does not include damage or injury to pets in your care, however.
We recommend every business have this kind of insurance. Most pet stores will need it to rent a retail space.
Say a customer slips on water that leaked from a fish tank and breaks a wrist. General liability would help pay the medical bills and any costs related to a lawsuit.
Commercial property insurance
This policy covers your retail space and the contents inside it, such as tanks, cages, shelving and signage. Commercial property insurance typically covers fire, theft, vandalism and severe weather. It usually excludes floods or earthquakes.
Business property coverage often comes with business interruption insurance. This pays if a covered disaster causes you to close down and lose income. It can cover a portion of rent, utilities and other costs.
Say a fire damages your store and ruins your shelving and rabbit feed inventory. Commercial property would help pay to repair the building and replace the stock.
Most commercial property policies exclude or limit live animals — you need animal mortality coverage to cover the gap.
🤓 Nerdy Tip
A business owner’s policy combines general liability, commercial property and (often) business income insurance. It can make sense — and be cost effective — for a pet store to opt for a BOP since it will likely need each of those coverages. Animal mortality or live animal coverage
This coverage pays for the death of live animals in your inventory or care from causes like disease, theft, fire and certain HVAC failures. Standard commercial property typically excludes live animals as covered inventory.
If you sell exotic animals like lizards or parrots, you will need to schedule them on this policy. That means listing them specifically to tailor coverage to reflect their cost. Otherwise, you will likely receive the wholesale value of live inventory.
Say an employee accidentally leaves a cooling pump unplugged overnight and you lose $4,000 in saltwater fish. Animal mortality coverage helps pay to replace them.
Workers’ compensation insurance
This pays for medical bills and lost wages for employees hurt or sick because of work. Nearly every state requires workers’ compensation insurance once you have employees, with rules set at the state level.
Say a dog bites one of your groomers, requiring stitches and a tetanus shot. Workers' comp would help pay for medical care and any lost wages while they recover.
Animal bailee insurance
This is a form of professional liability insurance. It pays for injury, illness or death of a customer's pet in your care and for claims that your service caused harm. This can include pets you are grooming, boarding, training or transporting.
Say a dog is injured on a grooming table and the owner sues for vet bills and emotional distress. Animal bailee coverage helps pay for the veterinary care and any settlement.
Other types of business insurance pet stores may need
| Policy type | Coverage details |
|---|---|
| Covers injury or illness caused by products you sell, such as pet food, treats, toys, leashes and collars. General liability often includes some product protection. But you may want to buy more based on your level of risk. Say a treat you sold is later linked to a salmonella outbreak and a customer's dog gets sick. Product liability helps pay the vet bills and for your legal defense. | |
| Business interruption insurance (off-premises) | Pays for costs related to an off-premises problem that causes you to temporarily close. Typical business interruption insurance only covers issues related to your property itself. This can leave gaps for retail businesses. Say a windstorm knocks out the electricity to your store. It takes the utility company a week to restore power. This policy can cover lost revenue while you’re closed, as well as expenses like generator rentals to get aquarium filters, oxygen pumps and heaters working in the meantime. |
| Required if you own or operate vehicles for the business like delivery vans or mobile grooming vehicles. A personal auto policy generally won't cover an accident during business use. Say a delivery driver rear-ends another car while dropping off a large dog crate to a customer. Commercial auto would pay for the damage to both cars and any injuries to the other driver. | |
| Equipment breakdown coverage | Pays for repairs or replacement when motorized or electrical equipment fails. This may include aquarium pumps and chillers, freezers for live food, grooming tubs and sales hardware. Say a power surge fries your aquarium chillers and your saltwater stock is endangered. Equipment breakdown helps pay for the repairs. |
| Pays costs from data breaches, ransomware and other cyberattacks. If you use online ordering or grooming scheduling software, cyber insurance is a good idea. Say your system is hit with ransomware, exposing customer payment data. Cyber insurance helps with the investigation, the required customer notifications and any legal fees. | |
| Adds extra liability limits on top of your general liability, commercial auto, animal bailee and other liability policies. Once you have a busy store or a grooming or boarding operation, consider umbrella insurance. Say a dog-bite lawsuit exceeds your $1 million general limit by $500,000. Umbrella would help pay the rest. |
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What pet store owners should watch out for in their policies
It is important to check the fine details of any policy to make sure it fully covers your business. Pet store owners should pay particular attention to:
- Property coverage often excludes live animals. If you sell puppies, fish, reptiles or birds, you’ll need to buy a policy with an animal mortality or live animal endorsement. Without one, a power outage or disease outbreak that wipes out your livestock may not be covered.
- General liability does not cover injury to a customer's pet in your care. If you offer grooming, boarding, daycare, training or transportation, confirm your policy includes animal bailee coverage. If not, get it as an add-on.
- Aquarium leaks may not be covered. Property insurance may exclude water damage from a slow-leaking tank. If you’re unsure if your policy does, be sure to ask the insurer. You may need to buy an endorsement or separate policy to cover this gap.
- Waiting periods for business interruption policies. Coverage for these policies typically doesn’t kick in for 24 to 72 hours. But with live inventory, you can’t wait days to address an issue like no power or running water. Instead, get a zero-hour waiting period rider or immediate coverage endorsement.
How much does pet store insurance cost?
Pet stores may pay around $600 per year for general liability or $1,500 per year for a business owner’s policy, according to data provided to NerdWallet by online brokerage Coverdash. These rates are medians among Coverdash customers.
Your own costs will depend on the size of your store, where you’re located and the number of employees you have, among other factors. The largest factor just may be whether you sell just pet supplies or live animals too, and which types, if the latter.
How to shop for pet store business insurance
Follow these steps to compare multiple business insurance quotes for similar policies. That will help you find the right coverage at a fair price.
1. Gather your key details
Have your business information ready before you request quotes. This includes annual revenue, square footage, the number of employees, and the services you offer. If you offer grooming, boarding, daycare or training, write down how many pets you take in on a typical day.
Make a list of your live animal inventory by species, including any reptiles, birds or other exotics. Pet stores with aquarium systems should have the number of tanks and total gallons handy.
Have your state pet dealer or retailer license number, if your state requires one. You’ll need your federal employer identification number (EIN) too.
2. Get quotes from multiple insurers
There are three common ways to compare quotes for business insurance policies.
- Work with an agent or broker. An independent agent can typically find pet store insurance from carriers you can’t get a quote from online. It also allows you to ask questions specific to your business about each policy. This option may be best for a store with exotic animals, grooming services or a boarding operation.
- Get insurance quotes directly. You can go directly to insurers’ websites or call their company and apply for coverage directly. It takes some time to enter all those details separately, so this option is best if you have a few specific carriers in mind.
- Use an online marketplace. Online sites like Coverdash or Simply Business act as a broker to connect you with multiple quotes within their network. You can buy quickly and typically keep the entire experience online. This is often the fastest path for a smaller operation or a sole proprietor, but may not work for more complex businesses.
3. Compare limits, exclusions and companies
Read the fine print of each policy carefully. Confirm whether they cover live animals, and which species are included. Look for breed restrictions on dogs, exotic species exclusions and any limits on aquarium-related water damage to your store or to neighboring tenants.
Look at policy limits (how much an insurer will pay per incident and overall). Check that the deductible — what you pay before coverage kicks in — fits your needs. You can adjust these to get cheaper business insurance. But doing so can also leave you exposed. For instance, opting for a $2,000 deductible means you’ll likely pay out of pocket for issues like aquarium cracks.
Check up on carriers too. Read reviews about any companies you are considering on independent sites. You can also check complaint trends in your state with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners or your state insurance board.
4. Buy the policies and review them annually
Once you have chosen a carrier, you can buy the policy and download your certificate of insurance. Pet stores change a lot from year to year, so it is worth revisiting your coverage at every renewal.
If your business changes, review your policy at that time. Update your insurance any time you add a service, expand your aquarium system, hire more employees or move to a larger space.
