Insurance for bringing your dog to work

tmc86

Hi All,

We're exploring the possibility of becoming a dog friendly office. We're a small team in our own office next door to the main office but we often have visitors for meetings day to day and other staff call in too.

I'm trying to understand the ins and outs of 3rd party liability insurance so that we're covered should an incident occur.

Re the private pet insurance policies, they cover 3rd party liability however this doesn't seem to extend to the workplace.

Has anyone had any experience with this?

Thank you

sillysmiles

No idea, but I love the idea.

Stigura

tmc86 wrote: »

Re the private pet insurance policies, they cover 3rd party liability however this doesn't seem to extend to the workplace.

Just a hunch. But, I suspect ye should be looking towards Public Liability Insurance

Glass fused light

The pet owners insurance is not sufficent in a workplace. Your job would need to contact a broker or the insurance provider directly and have the existing policy changed, this would have to cover all of the property office and carparks, for both employees and the general public and the dog too.

Even if you were to try and rely on the owners insurance you would have to have a system where the individual owner produced a cert and make it someones job to verify and maintain a record and the job still has to pay out legal fees and compo if something bad happened. Worst case would be a non-dog owner being sued because they were the only one in the office at the time of the incident.

If its a leased property have someone check with the landlord, there maybe a restriction in the lease, if it impacts other tenants who share services.

You would also need to look at a risk assessment under h&s obligations, remember your employer has to provide a safe work environment.

Good luck

tmc86

Thanks very much, I'll look into the existing company insurance and see how it fairs.

Glass fused light

tmc86 wrote: »

Thanks very much, I'll look into the existing company insurance and see how it fairs.

If your current policy is a no go try contacting a broker or some organisations which work with animals. Employees with guide dogs etc must be provided for by some insurers.

Plus you would also need to get your HR to add somethings to your staff policy to cover dog grooming and good manners, you can't have the Great Dane showing up in a thong and flip flops on best suit day:D

irish_goat

I've a few FB friends who seem to work in dog friendly offices. Would wonder if they have considered insurance though as it's something that wouldn't have occurred to me anyway. Our office isn't officially dog friendly but a fella brings his in every couple of weeks when his wife isn't at home to look after it. There's definitely no extra insurance anyway.

Glass fused light

irish_goat wrote: »

I've a few FB friends who seem to work in dog friendly offices. Would wonder if they have considered insurance though as it's something that wouldn't have occurred to me anyway. Our office isn't officially dog friendly but a fella brings his in every couple of weeks when his wife isn't at home to look after it. There's definitely no extra insurance anyway.

The 3rd party cover in the insurance policy may already cover this, after all they usually have to be wide enough to cover those :eek: S\HE DID WHAT??:eek: moments you have heard about in the pub, as by extension anything the dog did was due to the dog owning employee.

If the job has no official policy I can see why the company had not considered any implications. Its normally that a single staff member gets sign off at a local level and stuff like this is usually ok until someone else pushes the boundary and uses the original position to argue their case. Once it escalates up the decision chain, management have to consider what happens if everyone wants to do it.