Cat Rescue & Small Animal Sanctuary Insurance
Please note that while we insure animal sanctuaries that might house dogs, we do not provide cover for dog only rescues that are foster care led.
Organisations that work with animals have some unique and interesting risks. If you contact us for advice on your insurance, you will be speaking to an adviser that understands the range of your activities. We can consider a wide range of risks but we no longer offer cover to dog only rescues.
With high volunteer participation to support fund-raising, animal husbandry, fostering and rescue work; it is important to ensure their liability to volunteers as well as employees is fully protected. We will review all of your liability and property insurance requirements.
Specific risks may exist around the animal breeds your organisation works with too. If you are involved in animal rescue (and fostering) we understand your day to day risks.
If you need animal rescue insurance, contact Ladbrook today.
Animal Sanctuaries have all of the traditional insurance risks we would associate with a charity blended with the unique aspects of working with animals.
Tim Larden, Managing Director
Cat Rescue and Small Animal Sanctuary Insurance – Public and Employer Liability
There are several considerations for cat rescues and animal sanctuaries when considering their risk management. We explore a number of them here and these are issues that we discuss when reviewing the public liability insurance needs for rescues and sanctuaries.
Animals can be unpredictable and when humans are in close proximity, there is always a risk that a small animal might nip, bite, scratch or cause injury directly to a member of the public. Such eventualities should be covered by the public liability insurance section of your cat rescue, small animal sanctuary or small animal re-homing centre insurance policy. Your responsibility is to provide a safe environment and it would need to be demonstrated that a claim was the result of a failure in your duty of care.
From an insurance perspective, it is important that the insurer understands the nature of your activities. For example, some insurers that we work with are happy when our clients work with animals, but some have specific exclusions.
In addition to injury, a key consideration is illness. While most centres open to the public or carrying out, attending events take great care to provide sanitary facilities and provide visitors with sensible procedures and facilities as well as essential animal health monitoring, the risk of the public becoming ill and making an allegation against the centre does exist.
Of course, staff and volunteers may also claim against the charity and as a result, employer liability is an important element of cover.
At Ladbrook, we concentrate on the cat rescue, small animal sanctuary or small animal re-homing centre insurance issues and most of our clients have separate arrangements to cover the vet fees for any animals.