Insurance for Working Dogs
By Sam Gilbert 
With Remembrance Sunday approaching, many dog-lovers are reflecting on the contribution made by British military working dogs in times of conflict – including the continuing efforts of the 200 dogs in the 1st Military Working Dog regiment, currently serving in Afghanistan.
These dogs do vital work guarding, patrolling, and detecting improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and their health and wellbeing is of the utmost importance to the regiment. Specialist veterinary officers are continually on hand to take care of them.
There are of course many UK working dogs who aren’t in the military or the police force. Dogs do important work in everyday life in a wide range of areas including herding sheep and cattle, helping with search and rescue efforts, and guiding people with visual or hearing disabilities. They too need proper treatment and attention from vets to keep them healthy and safe.
Unfortunately, most well-known pet insurance companies don’t offer pet insurance for working dogs, as their work presents increased risks of injury, illness, and public liability. We’ve already negotiated cheaper pet insurance for non-working dogs; now we would like to give working dog owners more options, so we are working on creating new groups to agree better deals on pet insurance for working dogs.
We have already created a group for working Gun Dogs, though we are still negotiating the details of the offer. For now, the more people join the group, the better our negotiating power becomes. You can join the group here to add your voice to demanding better insurance for working Gun Dogs.
At present, we have found one company, Petplan, who will insure working dogs – provided that the dogs’ work does not involve security, guarding, track-racing or coursing. They offer a lifetime working dog insurance policy via their Ultimate product with £12,000 of vet fees cover and £3m of public liability insurance.
Do you know of other UK insurance companies who offer pet insurance for working dogs? If so we would love to hear from you.
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