Why “the platform protects me” may not mean what homeowners and sitters think it means
House and pet sitting is built on trust. A homeowner hands over the keys to their home, the routines of their pets and, in many cases, responsibility for animals they consider part of their family. In return, a sitter accepts responsibility for somebody else’s home and animals, often while living far away from their own support network.
Behind that relatively simple arrangement, however, sits a surprisingly complicated question: if something goes wrong, who is actually responsible?
Is it the homeowner, the sitter, the homeowner’s insurer, the sitter’s insurer or the house-sitting platform? The answer can be different depending on what has happened, and this is where we believe one of the least discussed issues in modern house and pet sitting exists: the responsibility gap.
A Platform Guarantee Is Not Necessarily Insurance
One of the easiest assumptions to make is that if a house or pet sitting platform advertises a guarantee or protection scheme, the people involved are insured through that platform. That is not necessarily the case.
Rover, for example, explicitly states in its UK terms that the Rover Guarantee is not insurance and does not replace users obtaining appropriate insurance themselves. Its terms also state that service providers are responsible for carrying insurance where required and that Rover does not verify whether they have obtained it.
Its current Guarantee provides reimbursement for certain eligible incidents, including veterinary costs and some property damage, but exclusions apply. Theft, sitter injuries and a number of other circumstances are not covered. Rover also advises users with relevant pet or homeowner insurance to claim through those policies before seeking reimbursement through the Guarantee.
TrustedHousesitters takes a different approach. Its Home and Contents Plan, available to eligible Pet Parent memberships, provides additional protection for certain property damage, theft and public liability claims. However, TrustedHousesitters also states that the homeowner must already hold an existing home insurance policy for that additional protection to be valid, and claims remain subject to conditions, limits and exclusions.
Neither approach is inherently wrong. What matters is that people understand what protection they actually have rather than what they assume they have.
Your Home Insurance Still Matters
Having somebody staying in your home does not make your existing insurance irrelevant.
The AA’s guidance on house sitting notes that having somebody present can actually reduce certain risks associated with leaving a property empty. However, the terms and conditions of the homeowner’s policy still apply, including circumstances where an action by the person staying in the property may affect a claim.
There is another complication. Home insurance policies can contain restrictions when properties are considered unoccupied. The Financial Ombudsman Service says many policies restrict cover for risks including theft, malicious damage and escape of water after a property has been unoccupied for a specified period, often 30 or 60 days.
A sitter physically staying in the property may therefore be beneficial, but that does not automatically tell you how an individual insurer will classify the arrangement or whether every aspect of the policy remains unchanged. This is why homeowners should speak directly with their insurer rather than relying on assumptions.
The relevant question is not simply, “Do I have home insurance?” It is, “Does my home insurance apply in the way I expect while another person is staying in my home and caring for my pets?”
Those are very different questions.
Pet Sitter Insurance Protects a Different Set of Risks
Specialist pet-care insurance demonstrates just how many potential liabilities can arise during ordinary pet care.
Protectivity’s current UK pet-sitting policy, for example, offers cover options including public liability, loss of keys and care, custody and control of animals. Its care, custody and control provision can cover circumstances where an animal being cared for is accidentally lost, injured, becomes ill or dies, subject to the policy terms. Its key cover can deal with expenses arising from lost client keys, while public liability can respond to certain injury or property-damage claims.
This tells us something important. These are not fantastical worst-case scenarios invented to frighten pet owners; they are recognised risks for which an established insurance market already exists.
Protectivity’s analysis of its own 2025 pet-care claims found that injuries during walking or play represented approximately 40% of incidents in the dataset, with dog-on-dog aggression accounting for another 15%. It also reported that incidents involving boarding, daycare and transport could be among the most expensive when they occurred.
The majority of pet sits will, of course, pass without serious incident. Insurance exists precisely because unlikely does not mean impossible.
House Sitting Is Not the Same as Home Boarding
There is also considerable confusion around regulation, particularly when discussions about pet sitting, boarding and licensing are treated as though they are all the same activity.
In England, commercial dog home boarding is regulated under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) framework. However, current government guidance makes an important distinction between home boarding and caring for an animal in its usual home.
For home boarding, the dog is accommodated in a domestic home that is not the dog’s usual residence. By contrast, government guidance specifically lists businesses looking after dogs within their normal place of residence, such as dog sitters, among activities that do not require a home-boarding licence.
That distinction matters enormously when discussing regulation. A person staying in a homeowner’s property and caring for that homeowner’s animals is not automatically performing the same regulated activity as somebody operating a commercial boarding business from their own property.
It is one reason broad calls to “license all pet sitters” can become considerably more complicated once the different models of pet care are examined properly.
Verification and Insurance Solve Different Problems
Another area where language can become blurred is verification. Identity verification can help establish that somebody is who they claim to be. References and reviews can provide evidence of previous experience. A criminal-record or background check may provide another layer of information, while training can demonstrate knowledge and insurance can provide financial protection against specified risks.
None of those things, however, replaces the others.
TrustedHousesitters, for example, states that its sitter checks include identity verification, while US sitters undergo background checks. It also uses member reviews and references as part of its trust framework. Those measures can help reduce certain risks, but they do not mean that every eventuality is financially covered.
Likewise, possessing an insurance certificate tells you little about somebody’s character or competence unless the policy itself has been checked and the relevant activity and geographical territory are covered.
Real safety is therefore layered. There is rarely a single badge, policy, guarantee or verification process capable of replacing sensible due diligence.
So Where Does Responsibility Actually Sit?
In practice, responsibility is distributed between the people and organisations involved.
The sitter needs to understand their obligations and any insurance they hold. The homeowner needs to understand their own insurance and disclose accurate information about their animals and property. The platform needs to be clear about what it verifies, what protection it provides and, equally importantly, what it does not. Both parties also need to communicate properly before an arrangement begins.
That may sound obvious, yet the industry often compresses all of this into reassuring phrases such as “verified”, “protected”, “trusted” or “covered”. Those words are useful only when people understand what actually sits behind them.
Perhaps, therefore, the conversation around house and pet sitting has focused on the wrong question. Instead of simply asking whether house sitting is safe, we should be asking whether everyone involved understands which risks they are responsible for.
No platform can eliminate every risk. No insurance policy covers every eventuality. No verification process can guarantee human behaviour, and no review system can predict the future.
What a responsible platform can do is make those boundaries clearer. It can verify what can reasonably be verified, encourage appropriate insurance, provide transparent information, educate members about their responsibilities and make it harder for people to enter an arrangement believing protections exist when they do not.
That distinction matters.
Why The Guardians Tribe Takes a Layered Approach
At The Guardians Tribe, our model is based on mutual exchange house and pet sitting rather than paid pet-care bookings. We believe trust should be supported by evidence rather than assumed from a profile alone.
That is why our approach combines identity verification, profile review, transparent trust indicators, member education and visibility around insurance, including the geographical territory in which a Guardian’s verified policy applies.
We also believe homeowners should understand their own insurance position rather than being given a blanket assurance that may not reflect the wording of their individual policy.
It would undoubtedly be simpler to tell people that one badge, one check or one guarantee makes an arrangement “safe”. We do not believe that would be responsible.
House and pet sitting works extraordinarily well for thousands of people because it is fundamentally based upon human trust. The future of the sector should not be about removing that trust, but about giving people better information with which to place it.
This article is intended as general information and discussion and does not constitute insurance or legal advice. Insurance policies, licensing requirements and individual circumstances vary. Homeowners and sitters should check their own policy documentation, speak with their insurer where appropriate and seek professional advice where necessary.
Research reviewed
This article draws upon publicly available information and guidance from the UK Government/DEFRA regarding animal activities licensing, the Financial Ombudsman Service regarding home insurance, AA guidance concerning house sitting and home insurance, Rover UK’s Guarantee and terms, TrustedHousesitters’ Home and Contents Plan and trust guidance, and Protectivity’s pet-care insurance information and 2025 claims analysis.
