Government Removes Controversial Pet Insurance Clause from New Tenancy Law

I wrote a fairly detailed post in December 2025 on pets in rented properties and the proposed changes coming with the Renters’ Rights Bill.

In essence, the bill, when it becomes law, will make it more difficult for landlords to refuse pets.

Not only does the legislation provide that landlords must not refuse pets ‘unreasonably’, but tenants who feel that permission has been unreasonably refused can refer the decision to the new landlords’ redress scheme for review.

As a result, many more landlords will find that they have no alternative but to permit pets.

The problem with insurance

The government initially ‘sweetened the pill’ by saying that landlords, as a condition of granting permission, could require tenants to pay for insurance cover.

However, it now looks as if the government have changed their mind.  As in June 2025, we were told that a new amendment would remove these clauses from the bill.

Mind you, this is probably in response to the insurance industry telling the government that the type of cover they were looking for did not exist.

The Earl of Kinnoull and the House of Lords Committee stage debate

In the House of Lords Committee stage debate, The Earl of Kinnoull, a crossbench peer who has experience in insurance matters (being a director of Alpha Insurance Analysts and having share ownership in Hiscox Group) spoke on this.

He informed the House that at present, insurance is only really available for accidental damage. This is not the type of damage contemplated by the act, saying such a policy is

not for damage caused by everyday wear and tear. For example, if a dog scratches at your door every day, this is not covered, while if a pet pulls down curtains that causes damage to a wall, this would be covered.

Of course, that is a vanishingly small percentage of the loss costs likely to be caused by a pet. Most of the losses from pets will be to do with chewing or infestations …

The ‘Italian torpedo’ argument

The difficulty of trying to legislate so that a landlord can say to someone, “You can have a pet as long as you buy an insurance policy”, and there being no actual policy of insurance that exists, or no reasonable one, is that it is what is sometimes called an Italian torpedo—a legal trick whereby you started a case in a different jurisdiction to slow everything down, and the initial case never gets decided.

It would mean that the landlord could ask the tenant to find insurance that he knew did not exist and the pet would never be allowed into the property. That is not the intention of this Bill, so it would be quite wrong to let this option go forward.

It looks, therefore as if the government has accepted this argument and so removed the right for landlords to demand that tenants provide or pay for insurance.

This means that landlords will need to foot the bill for insurance themselves. As there is no longer going to be any mechanism to require tenants to insure against pet-related damage.

Which inevitably means higher rents for tenants.

Advice for landlords following on from this

Even if the tenant you accept does not have a pet – if they ask for one, it is going to be difficult for you to refuse.

So all landlords should consider doing the following:

• Arrange for pet damage for all properties, other than those where pets will definitely not be allowed (for example, where the landlord’s headlease forbids pets). This means that even if tenants bring in unauthorised pets, you should be covered.
• Ensure that your rent is sufficient to cover this cost.
• If you take a deposit, check that you have suitable clauses in your tenancy agreement to allow you to use it for pet damage (most professionally drafted documents will do this)
• When preparing properties to rent, bear in mind that it is likely that at some stage a pet will be living there. So, for example, avoid expensive carpets and consider hard floors. Avoid any furnishings that are particularly vulnerable to pet damage and provide furniture which will be easily replaced or repaired.
• Make it known to your tenants that you are open to accepting pets, which will encourage them to let you know if they want a pet.  Rather than just bringing one in without telling you.

This way, you should be able to minimise your losses if your tenants do decide keep a pet, such as a cat or a dog, at the property.

Mind you – maybe this is not actually going to be a big problem.  Remember that this report found that in most cases, pet damage is minimial.

Further advice for landlords and training webinars on the Renters Rights Bill are available on my Landlord Law service.

Stop press

Propertymark is urging the government to allow an additional pet deposit now that the insurance option is gone.  It looks as if Lord Kinnoull’s amendment for this has been tabled again at report stage.