Dog on board: who pays when it causes damage or hurts someone?

On the Broads, on a canal or on a summer passage along the coast, plenty of owners take the dog along. The questions tend to come later: who pays for the chewed cockpit cushion, the scratched topsides or the bitten shore power lead? And who answers if the dog knocks a guest over on the pontoon or bites a child in the marina? The answers sit in two different contracts, and the boat policy is often only one part of the picture, if it plays a part at all.

Damage a dog does to the owner's own boat is expressly excluded in many hull policies, often under a heading such as animal damage or damage caused by pets. Read the exclusions in your wording before the season rather than after the first chewed cushion. Injury or damage the dog causes to other people is a question of the keeper's liability. That usually falls to a personal or pet liability policy, sometimes part of home insurance, rather than to the boat's third party cover. Check that it applies afloat and abroad, especially if you cross to France or the Netherlands with the boat.

For safety, a dog buoyancy aid with a lifting handle on the back earns its place, as does a non slip ramp or gangway to the pontoon and a shaded spot, because decks and cockpits get hot in the sun. Let the dog get used to the boat in harbour first. Before a passage abroad, check the entry rules for pets: within the EU a pet passport and a valid rabies vaccination, and for dogs travelling from Great Britain the documents the UK government currently asks for. Some marinas and beaches do not admit dogs at all.

Worth remembering

The dog comes aboard, and so should the right liability cover.