Pet Shop Insurance & Pet Store Insurance: Quotes From $5

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When you run a store in the retail industry like a clothing store or a jewelry shop, there are likely a lot of things going through your mind. Meeting the bills, keeping employees happy, and managing your time properly are just a few of the things that business owners have to consider each day.

The same is true when running a pet shop. Animals can get sick or cause an accident. Also , there’s rules and regulations that you might unintentionally violate too. This is where pet shop insurance comes into play, protecting your business and the animals under your care.

This guide will cover everything that business owners should know about pet store insurance. We’re going to start off with the most common types of insurance that you can get your hands on for pet shops. When that’s done, we’ll discuss the cost of pet shop insurance before diving into three of the best pet shop insurance companies.

Pet Shop Liability Insurance

Pet stores expose customers to a lot of dangers. For this reason, laws and regulations are in place to mitigate the risks customers might face. Measures pet shops take to keep customers safe are as follows:

• Selling only pets/animals free from abnormalities and disease

• Acquiring a special license before selling an exotic animal

• Regular cleaning and properly disposing of animal excretions in the pet store

• Placement of trash bins in low traffic and non-public sections of the pet store to avoid tripping and slipping

• Implementing a health protocol that mandates the proper handling of pets to avoid the transmission of animal diseases, which might be harmful to human beings

• Putting animals in cages to avoid customers getting bitten 

Regardless, despite taking a lot of measures to mitigate the possibility of injuries to customers, pet shops can’t fully prevent accidents from happening. And this is why there must be general liability insurance ready and waiting to take care of personal injury claims that require a lot of money to settle at court. Here are some examples:

• PetSmart faced a lawsuit demanding $1 million compensation when the plaintiff slipped and fell upon stomping on a dog poop store employees failed to clean

• A woman, who slipped in a pool of liquid while shopping in the PetCo Animal Supplies store, filed a lawsuit seeking monetary compensation for physical pain and monetary loss

• In 2006, PetCo faced a lawsuit after another customer’s puppy bit the plaintiff’s daughter and caused minor injuries

• PetCo faced a lawsuit in 2013 accusing them of having liability over the death of a 10-year-old customer, who was bitten by the rat the pet store in question sold

Pet shops should be on high alert for slip and fall accidents as these are costly and can easily happen. Most of the time customers hold pet shops liable by saying that there’s no wet floor sign placed or the management failed to properly maintain and clean the premises.

"A second hazard is that pet stores can have aisles and merchandise that is more dangerous than other stores. For example, pet store aisles often have spilled materials, such as liquids, feed, straw, and rocks. These can constitute a tripping hazard, especially for children who may make up a significant portion of the customer base. In addition, even if the store is prompt to clean up messes, that results in more freshly mopped floors than other stores, such as clothing and department stores"

Dogs and cats are the most common pets sold in pet stores. And so, to gain insights into the likelihood of slips and falls happening in pet stores, we looked at the research published at the Journal of Safety research exploring dogs and cats as slip and fall hazards.  Key findings from the research are:

• There are about 86,629 slip and fall accidents dogs and cats caused

• The most common injuries are fractures, contusions, and abrasions

• Females are more likely to experience slip and fall accidents than males

Here’s a table showing the average cost of slip and fall settlement based on the type of injury the plaintiff sustained:

The possibility of a customer contracting a disease from the animals in a pet shop is something that many online sources rarely talk about. And so, we find it rightful to discuss here. Dogs, cats, and exotic pets all carry some diseases that are more or less harmful to human beings. In the event that the human body reacts severely to a disease coming from an animal, sickness isn’t the only aftermath but might be even death. Highly dangerous diseases humans may contract from pet shops are:

• LCMB

• Leptospirosis

• Poxvirus

• Psittacosis

• Ringworm

• Salmonellosis

• Bartonellosis

State laws say that pet shops have a certain degree of liability for any kind of harm customers experience so long as it’s proven that there’s the failure to act and take the necessary precautions to ensure safety. It’s very easy for customers to file a claim and ask for a settlement no matter how trivial their injuries might be. And so, general liability insurance can be a very trusty armor against the financial breakdown personal injury claims might bring. 

Worker’s Comp Insurance for Pet Shops

Employee injuries are also common in pet shops. That’s why owners or managers should opt to get workers' comp insurance.  Common injuries employees in pet shops might experience are:

• Impact injuries

• Bites

• Scratches

• Getting cut or struck by an object

• Disease brought by the use of harmful chemicals

• Eye and skin irritation

• Needlestick injuries

• Contracting animal diseases

• Slips and falls

The research conducted in Washington over a 5-year period tells how common worker’s compensation claims are. During the study period, which started in 2007 and ended in 2011, the researchers tallied a total of an estimated 700,000 workers' compensation claims.  Only 6,000 were granted by carriers. Nonetheless, most accepted claims awarded monetary compensation or medical aid to the claimants. This research only touches the tip of the iceberg. Nonetheless, it clearly shows that workers' compensation claims are common in pet shops, veterinary clinics, pet grooming services, and other related businesses.  And so, to avoid paying for expenses using one’s own finances, pet shops and others mentioned shouldn’t think twice about getting workers comp insurance. 

Business Owner's Policy for Pet Shops

Another great pet shop business insurance is a BOP or business owner's policy. This kind of policy isn’t just a single form of coverage like a general or public liability policy. Rather, it’s a combination of different types of coverage.

If you know a thing or two about the insurance industry then you know that carriers like to bundle their services and offer a discount. This ensures that they get more of your business and that you can get better prices for what would have cost you more when had you purchased it separately.

A BOP combines different types of insurance depending on which carrier you purchase it from, but most offer two components. The first of these is a liability policy. This can be either public liability or general liability depending on the cost of the business owner policy. This is then coupled with a commercial property insurance policy that exists to cover any damage to the building or some of the items within it.

Pet Store Insurance  Cost

Determining how much pet store insurance is going to cost you tends to be a lot harder than figuring that out for any number of other businesses. Don’t get us wrong, it’s hard to have an idea of how much your insurance will cost without a quote as pet stores are unique.

This is due to the wide range of animals that you could be selling within your pet store. If you’re selling expensive cats, then you can expect to pay quite a bit for your insurance. This is also the case if you’re selling exotic animals that may end up injuring one of your customers.

However, the animals themselves aren’t the only factor that goes into determining the cost of your pet shop insurance. Another factor that you’ll have to consider is the size of your pet shop, which will have just as large (if not more) of an impact on your eventual insurance premiums.

When you think about it, it makes sense that larger stores have higher premiums because they have more stock and they see more customers throughout a year, making them more likely to need to make a claim at some point or another.

To ensure that the following numbers are good reference values, we’ve gone ahead and used a medium-sized pet store with a good claims history to gather them.

The average cost of pet shop insurance based on the numbers we’ve gathered from these three carriers is about $33.81 per month or $513.58 per year for $1 million liability coverage.