A licensed UK cattery can buy £5 million of public liability for £142.60 a year. A US pet-care business pays a median of $43 a month, or $513 a year, for $1 million per occurrence. Neither policy will pay anything for the kitten you sold that turns out to have HCM at 14 months. That gap, not the premium, is the number a breeder should price first.
Three products share one word and cover different things
The market labels all of them "cattery insurance", and the labels hide the differences. Public liability pays a visitor you injure or property your cats damage. Care, custody and control (CCC) pays veterinary bills for animals boarding with you. Breeder liability covers the public risk of breeding and, in almost every wording, nothing else.
Cliverton's domestic animal breeders policy starts at £175.85 a year and its own page says it is "not suitable for those looking to cover vet fees for their own animals." The licensed kennel and cattery policy starts at £142.60, and it is "not suitable for those who are only boarding animals within their own homes." Two products, £33 apart, and the cheaper one is the wrong one for a home cattery. Read the eligibility paragraph before the price.
What three UK policies and one US benchmark actually cost
| Policy | From, per year | Public liability | Animals in care | Published excess |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cliverton, licensed kennel and cattery | £142.60 (£11.89 a month) | Included in the package | Care, custody and control section | Injury £0, property damage £250, CCC £0, non-negligent £50, transit £100 |
| Protectivity, kennels and catteries | £64.92 (£5.41 a month) | Up to £10 million | £100,000, capped at £25,000 per animal | Set in your schedule |
| Pet Business Insurance, kennel and cattery | £81.64 (£1.57 a week) | Up to £5 million | £75,000, capped at £25,000 any one claim | Set in your schedule |
| US pet-care median (Insureon) | $513 ($43 a month) | $1 million per occurrence, $2 million aggregate | Excluded, needs an animal bailee endorsement | Chosen by the buyer |
The US figure is the useful one for comparison because it shows the default: general liability covers the public, and the pets in your care sit behind a care, custody and control exclusion until you buy an animal bailee endorsement. A breeder who assumes "I have liability cover" usually has half of it.
The excess is where a cheap quote hides
Cliverton is unusual in publishing a full excess schedule, which makes claim arithmetic possible before a claim exists: third-party injury nil, third-party property damage £250, care, custody and control nil, non-negligent cover £50, goods in transit £100. The difference between the £5.41 and £11.89 monthly quotes is £78 a year, which is less than the transit excess and less than a third of one property damage claim. A cheap premium with an unpublished excess is not a cheaper policy; it is an unpriced one.
Ask for the schedule per section rather than a single number. "£250 excess" on a policy with five sections can mean £250 five times in one bad month.
A bite claim is rare; a licensing claim is not
Cats bite, but a cat bite that produces a five-figure settlement is uncommon, and the £5 million and £10 million limits are mostly there to satisfy a local authority. The realistic third-party exposure is a scratched visitor, an escaped stud cat, or a kitten injuring a child during a viewing. On the business side, the claims that actually land are regulatory: Pet Business Insurance includes loss of licence up to £10,000, and Protectivity explicitly excludes claims arising while operating without a valid boarding licence. Being unlicensed is not a gap in cover; it is the exclusion that voids the whole section.
One more exclusion that home breeders miss: household policies typically exclude business pursuits. Breeding from your spare room without telling your home insurer can leave both policies declining the same claim.
Genetic and congenital conditions: the exclusion nobody reads
Every kennel and cattery wording reviewed here excludes hereditary and congenital conditions, pre-existing conditions, and communicable disease outbreaks where vaccination was not in place. Protectivity lists all three in its exclusions. The consequence is blunt: HCM, PKD, patellar luxation and the rest of your line's inherited risks are your liability, not the insurer's. Budding-cattery policies in some markets do sell hidden-defect cover for exactly this, which shows how unusual it is elsewhere rather than how normal.
So the health guarantee you sign is not an insured product. It is a self-funded promise, and it should be written to a number you can survive. The clause-by-clause structure is covered in the health guarantee walkthrough, and the tests that reduce your exposure are in hereditary screening and pre-breeding genetic tests.
Two ledgers: the premium and the guarantee
Run the arithmetic on a small cattery. Eight kittens a year at £900 is £7,200 gross. One refunded kitten, a replacement from the next litter and the buyer's echocardiogram is a four-figure hit, more than a decade of the £142.60 premium. A single cardiac ultrasound screening costs roughly $200 to $500 per cat, which is why screening is cheaper than insuring the outcome — and why insurers do not sell the outcome.
The veterinary literature is direct about this: a health guarantee that replaces a kitten with a genetic defect "is not a replacement for health testing." Insurance covers the accident you cannot predict; a guarantee covers the diagnosis you could have screened for.
What the law already gives the buyer
In the UK, a kitten sold by a breeder is a consumer purchase, and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 cannot be contracted out of: the animal must be as described and of satisfactory quality. A guarantee clause adds a remedy and a timeline, it does not replace the statutory one. In the US, 22 states had pet-purchase protection statutes as of 2023, most written with dogs in mind, so a cat buyer's remedies vary by state and are often thinner than breeders assume.
A renewal checklist that takes 20 minutes
- Count entire cats and litters per year. Premium follows numbers, not breed.
- Ask in writing whether home breeding is covered, not just boarding.
- Request the excess schedule section by section, not one headline figure.
- Confirm the per-animal CCC limit, not only the aggregate.
- Check the business-pursuit exclusion on your household policy.
- Keep 12 months of sales, screening and vaccination records; claims fail on missing paper, not on coverage.
This article is general information about policy structures and published prices, not legal, tax or financial advice. Wording, limits and excesses are set by each insurer's schedule; read the policy document and confirm eligibility for your own operation before buying.
Terms mentioned in this article
Frequently asked
Does cattery insurance cover a kitten that later develops HCM or PKD?
No. Kennel and cattery wordings exclude hereditary and congenital conditions, so a diagnosis of HCM or PKD in a kitten you sold falls outside the policy. That liability sits with your health guarantee, which is self-funded. The tests that shrink it are pre-breeding DNA tests plus cardiac ultrasound screening at roughly $200 to $500 per cat.
Is £5.41 a month really cheaper than £11.89 a month?
Only if the excess schedule is the same, and it usually is not. Cliverton's published schedule includes a £250 property damage excess, a £100 transit excess and a £50 non-negligent excess; the £78 annual saving between the two quotes disappears after one property claim. Compare premium plus the excess you would realistically pay, not the premium alone.
Do I need a separate policy if I breed at home and never board cats?
Yes, and it is a different product. Cliverton states its licensed kennel and cattery policy is not suitable for people who only board animals in their own homes, and its breeder policy starts at £175.85 a year for public liability only, with no cover for your own cats' vet fees. Household policies typically exclude business pursuits, so relying on home insurance leaves a gap on both sides.