Travel Protection for Pets and Service Animals: Help Protect Your Furry Friends

Key Takeaway

Generali’s travel protection plans apply to your pets and service animals in these ways:

Travel Delay coverage: If you experience a travel delay, you can be reimbursed for pet kennel fees. To qualify you must be delayed at least 6 hours with our Premium Plan, 8 hours for Preferred, and 10 hours for our Standard Plan.
Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption coverages can reimburse your insured trip costs if your service animal becomes sick, injured or dies and prevents you from traveling.
Pet return: Arranges for the return of your pet to your home if your pet is traveling with you and you are unable to take care of your pet due to a medical emergency.
Need help finding pet-related services? Our concierge services can help you find veterinarians and pet sitters while you are away from home.

Your pet is like a member of the family, so it only makes sense to have them join you on your travels. When they do, it’s especially important to plan well, since not everywhere is pet friendly. As part of the planning, consider how a travel protection plan can help with the pets you bring on a trip.

With Generali Global Assistance’s plans, your pets or service animals can benefit from certain coverages and services. See how >>

Travel Insurance, Assistance Services and Pets

Traveling with pets has become more and more common over the years. Most pet owners (78%) have traveled with a dog and 19% of cat owners have brought their tiny companion on a trip. The number of people traveling with pets is on the rise, up 18% in the last decade.

81% of travelers reported having only positive experiences vacationing with their pet, but taking a pet on a trip can be stressful, too. Having a travel protection plan and the assistance team behind it can help relieve that stress.

Getting a travel protection plan from Generali Global Assistance gives you access to certain coverages and services that could help when traveling with pets. Especially if you're planning a trip around destinations that cater to your dog or cat, consider how a travel protection plan might help on your trip.

Also read: Top 10 Dog-Friendly Vacations Around the World

Also read: Surprising Travel Insurance Coverages and Features

Travel Delay Coverage

Travel Delay coverage can provide reimbursement for certain reasonable out-of-pocket expenses if you are delayed on your trip, including extra pet kennel fees. Other things that can be covered include hotel accommodations, meals, local transportation and more.

Depending on your travel insurance plan, there are requirements that must be met to qualify. For our plans, the delay must be 10 hours or more (Standard), 8 hours or more (Preferred) or 6 hours or more (Premium). The delay must also result from one of the listed covered reasons mentioned in the Plan documents.

Concierge and Assistance Services

Need help finding pet-related services? Our Concierge Services can help you find veterinarians and pet sitters during or even before your trip.

Has the concierge at a hotel ever helped you find your way around a city you’re visiting, giving great suggestions and helping you make reservations? Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of service in your back pocket, ready to use, wherever you are during your trip, or even before it begins? All travel protection plans from Generali Global Assistance include Travel Concierge Services that can do that very thing.

How can our Concierge Services help you?

Part of the 24/7 Travel Assistance Services also applies to your pets. Not only will you be taken care of in case of a medical emergency, but we will arrange for the return of your pet to your home if your pet is traveling with you and you are unable to take care of your pet due to a medical emergency. This is a service included with our plans, not a coverage, so you won’t be reimbursed for the costs, but we’ll help make all the arrangements.

Watch: 14 Tips for Traveling with Dogs and Cats

Should You Purchase Pet Travel Protection?

Pet travel protection is great to buy for you and your pet or service animal when the two of you are taking a trip together. While Generali doesn’t offer specific pet travel protection, our plans apply to your pets in a variety ways:

Travel Delay coverage: If you experience a travel delay resulting from a covered event, you may be reimbursed for pet kennel fees. To qualify you must be delayed at least 6 hours with our Premium Plan, 8 hours for Preferred, and 10 hours for our Standard Plan.
Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption coverages may reimburse your insured trip costs if your service animal becomes sick, injured or dies and prevents you from traveling or interrupts your trip.
Pet return: Arranges for the return of your pet to your home if your pet is traveling with you and you are unable to take care of your pet due to a medical emergency.
Need help finding pet-related services? Our Concierge Services can help you find veterinarians and pet sitters while you are away from home.

Is Pet Coverage Necessary for Domestic Travel?

It’s not necessary, but it’s beneficial. Traveling nowadays can be challenging, so travel insurance that benefits you and your pets puts you in a position to expect (and prepare for) the unexpected. It can also help you feel more at ease knowing the two of you have the extra coverage no matter where your travel plans take you.

Do You Need Travel Protection if You Have Health Insurance for Your Pet?

Maybe. Pet health insurance and pet travel insurance are two different things. While the former covers medical circumstances like surgery, the latter helps in situations like if your trip gets delayed and you need to pay extra kennel fees or locate a last-minute pet-sitter while you’re on the road.

Travel Insurance and Service Animals

Easily done. Great coverage for a great price. We had their coverage for an airbnb reservation in California we had to cancel at the last minute because of a medical emergency for our service golden retriever. Our claim was processed efficiently and with sensitivity.

Stephen O. from Oregon

Your service animal can benefit from the same travel insurance and assistance services as non-service animal pets, plus they are counted the same as a family member or other traveling companion would be when it comes to the coverages that many travelers care about most -- reimbursing you for trip costs when you need to cancel or interrupt your trip for a covered reason.

First, let’s define what counts as a “service animal” according to our Plan documents:

Service animal means any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including, but not limited to, guiding persons with impaired vision, alerting persons with impaired hearing to intruders or sounds, providing animal protection or rescue work, pulling a wheelchair, or fetching dropped items.

Now, let’s get into the coverage details:

Trip Cancellation

Trip Cancellation is a coverage included with our plan that’s designed to make you "whole" again by reimbursing you up to 100% of your insured trip cost for unused, non-refundable, pre-paid travel expenses, and certain additional expenses in some cases, if you’re prevented from taking your trip due to a covered event that is not subject to an exclusion.

One of those covered events is the sickness, injury or death of you, a family member, your traveling companion or your service animal. If the animal is sick or injured while coverage is in effect, coverage requires the in-person treatment by a veterinarian and the written opinion of the veterinarian that the condition will prevent your travel, or you need to care for your service animal.

Our policies state that you need to be treated by a physician in order to qualify for travel insurance coverage related to illness or injury. If a service animal is the patient, a veterinarian meets the definition of physician.

Definition: PHYSICIAN means a person licensed as a medical doctor by the jurisdiction in which he/she is resident to practice the healing arts. They must be practicing within the scope of their license for the service or treatment given and may not be you, a Traveling Companion, or a Family Member of yours.

Trip Interruption

Trip Interruption coverage is similar to Trip Cancellation in that it’s designed to help you recoup pre-paid, unused, non-refundable travel costs, and certain additional expenses in some cases, if you’re prevented from taking your trip due to a covered event -- including the sickness, injury or death of your service animal, that is not subject to an exclusion. While Trip Cancellation can help if you must cancel your trip altogether, Trip Interruption can help if you’re still taking your trip but aren’t able to use all your pre-paid, non-refundable arrangements.

Trip Interruption coverage goes into effect as soon as you’re scheduled to depart on your trip. It can reimburse you for unused, non-refundable, pre-paid travel arrangements. Trip Interruption can also reimburse for out-of-pocket transportation expenses to get you caught back up to your trip as planned, or to get you back home if you must end your trip early.

Who wants to leave their furry friends at home when going on vacation? It stresses them out and stresses us out. Having to arrange, trust and pay for pet sitters, or board cats or dogs in a kennel is no fun. It might take a little extra planning and work to take them on a trip, but people do it all the time and their trip is more fun as a result.

Make sure you consider the animals traveling with you when you’re choosing travel protection for your trip. All of our plans include these features for pets and service animals, so it’s easy for you to get a quote and choose which plan fits your trip best, without worrying about which one covers pets or service animals.