Public Liability Insurance for Dog Walkers: Do You Need It?

Public liability insurance is not a general legal requirement for a UK dog walker.

What IS a legal requirement is Employers' Liability insurance — but only once you employ anyone who isn't a close family member.

Despite not being mandatory on its own, public liability insurance is the core of nearly every dog-walker insurance product on the market, and it's frequently written into local council or park dog-walking licence conditions — meaning it becomes a practical requirement the moment you need a specific licence that demands it.

Worth using

Typical market cover levels cited by insurers range roughly £1m–£10m

These are market norms from insurer marketing pages, not a statutory minimum.

Worth checking directly with your own insurer

Whether your policy automatically covers group walks of several unrelated dogs at once, or whether you need to tell them your maximum group size.

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