There are two main situations that prompt pet owners to buy pet-related travel insurance:

1) They want to be covered if they have to cancel a holiday due to illness, injury, or death of their pet and

2) They want to be covered if they take their pet on holiday with them.

Standard travel insurance generally doesn’t cover cancellations due to the illness, injury, or death of your pet. But you can obtain such cover by adding to standard travel insurance or by adding to standard pet insurance. This way you can reclaim costs directly related to the cancellation or abrupt termination of your holiday because of your pet’s situation.

Many standard pet insurance policies carry basic holiday cancellation cover that will reimburse £500 to £1,000, and you may be able to make a claim up to one week before leaving on holiday, should your pet become ill or injured or die in the week leading up to your departure.

If you plan to take your pet on holiday with you, the best travel insurance is that which includes liability cover for damage your pet may cause, as well as reimbursement for emergency medical expenses for your pet while you’re on holiday. To get the level of cover you need, you may need to have both travel insurance with pet cover and pet insurance with travel cover, so look into your insurance needs well before it’s time to go on holiday.