Pet insurance in India: what policies cover, exclude and cost, and how claims work

Who sells pet insurance in India in 2026

Five general insurers sell a pet policy in India in 2026 with a document you can read: The New India Assurance, Generali Central, HDFC ERGO, Bajaj General Insurance and Go Digit. Two changed their names in 2025, which is why older articles still say Future Generali and Bajaj Allianz.

Each product carries a Unique Identification Number, or UIN, which is the fastest way to tell a product from a sales page. The IRDAI (Insurance Products) Regulations, 2024 define the UIN as the number allotted to each product that must be disclosed in its literature and policy documents, and every wording read for this guide prints it on every page. The two renamings are on the regulator's register: IRDAI's list of general insurers names 'Bajaj General Insurance Limited (formerly knowns as Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Limited)' and 'Generali Central Insurance Company Limited', registration numbers 113 and 132. The policies did not change with the names.

One name on the ranking pages is missing from that table on purpose. Forbes lists an Oriental Insurance dog policy; orientalinsurance.org.in returned HTTP 200 with a 'JavaScript Required' shell and no product text on two attempts on 18 September 2026, so nothing from it can be quoted. Digit's product exists on paper, its own product list shows the filing of 10 November 2022, but its public pet page is an explainer with no quote form, so treat it as a product to ask about rather than one to buy in three clicks.

The cat question is settled by the same table. HDFC ERGO, Bajaj and Digit sell cat insurance as well as dog insurance; the HDFC page lists Persian, Siamese, Maine Coon, Bengal, Ragdoll, British Shorthair and an 'Indian Cat' row among the breeds it covers. New India and Generali Central insure dogs only, so a Persian owner has three products to compare, not five.

What pet insurance covers, policy by policy

Pet insurance in India covers, at its core, surgery and hospitalisation for an accident or an illness that starts after the policy begins; OPD, third-party liability, theft, terminal illness and death are sections you opt into and pay extra for, and one product covers death only.

The wordings agree on the shape and differ on the detail. Generali Central's base cover is surgery and hospitalisation with an OPD cover limited to 20 percent of that sum insured and Rs 10,000. HDFC ERGO sells a Comprehensive Cover or a Make Your Own Plan built from Injury, Illness and Surgery sections. Bajaj sells eight numbered sections that you buy one at a time. Digit's customer information sheet lists ten sections plus seven optional covers, including birth complications, behavioural illness, dental treatment and insect-borne disease. New India insures a dog 'against death due to accident and/or diseases' and nothing else.

The lump-sum sections pay once and are gone

Three products pay a fixed sum on a diagnosis rather than a bill. Generali Central's Terminal Illness Cover pays the full surgery sum insured for cancer, cardiac dysfunction, leptospirosis, kidney failure or canine distemper if the dog survives 30 days, and its Long Term Care Cover pays up to Rs 50,000 once in the dog's lifetime for epilepsy, pancreatitis, Cushing's syndrome, diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, ascites, glaucoma or inflammatory bowel disease. Bajaj's terminal list for cats swaps canine distemper and leptospirosis for feline distemper and leukaemia. Digit's critical illness list adds liver failure, cirrhosis, pulmonary fibrosis and radial nerve paralysis. Each is a single claim per lifetime.

What the extras actually pay

The add-ons are smaller than their names. Generali Central pays road ambulance up to Rs 2,000 a trip and Rs 1,500 a day for 5 or 10 days of pet minding if you are hospitalised for more than 4 days. HDFC ERGO caps an animal bite at Rs 5,000, burns and broken bones at 25 percent of the injury sum insured or Rs 10,000, and a minor illness at 25 percent of the illness sum or Rs 15,000, and its 4 telephone and 2 video consultations a year work only with its own empanelled vets. Bajaj reimburses Rs 1,000 of advertising and a Rs 5,000 reward for a lost pet.

What pet insurance excludes, and the clauses that bite Indian owners

Every pet policy in India excludes pre-existing disease, congenital and hereditary defects, and routine or preventive care; beyond that, one wording excludes malignant cancer outright, one excludes brachycephalic airway syndrome, and all five make an unvaccinated disease uninsurable.

Pre-existing disease is defined widely and handled differently. HDFC ERGO's definition reaches 'changes in Insured Pet's health or behaviour which are indicative of diagnosed or undiagnosed Injuries or Illnesses occurring prior to Policy Commencement Date';. Digit looks back 24 months. Generali Central is the one product that covers a pre-existing disease at all, after 12 months of continuous cover. Bajaj adds a test-or-wait rule for a pet over 4: biochemistry, blood count, urine and X-ray reports from the last 7 days, or a 3-month illness wait, and any disease the reports find is never covered.

No wording names a breed it refuses. New India covers 'indigenous origin, cross-bred, Exotic' dogs, and HDFC ERGO lists Indian Pariah, Indian Spitz, Indies, Pitbull and Rottweiler by name. Four of the five instead exclude 'any animal classified as dangerous by State or Central Government Authority', a clause with no national list behind it today, and Digit refuses any animal under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The breed exclusions that exist are written as conditions, and they are listed below.

• Brachycephalic airway syndrome. Digit's general exclusion 30 excludes 'Brachycephalic syndrome / Brachycephalic airway obstructive syndrome and related problems such as elongated soft palate, stenotic nares, hypoplastic trachea, and everted laryngeal saccules', their consequences, and nasal fold surgery. A Pug, a Bulldog or a flat-faced Persian cat is insured for everything except the condition its breed page warns about.
• Hip dysplasia. Bajaj excludes 'Treatment for Hip Displacia (unless specifically covered on payment of additional premium at first inception of Policy)'. Digit covers it under Section 2 with a 1-year specific waiting period, alongside tumours and cataract. HDFC ERGO lists it as a 'Minor' illness, which caps the payout at 25 percent of the illness sum insured or Rs 15,000. A Labrador or German Shepherd owner gets three different answers to one question.
• Malignant cancer. HDFC ERGO's general exclusion xxv reads 'Malignant cancer of any type', while its surgery table covers surgery for benign tumours. Bajaj excludes removal of any wart, abscess, benign or malignant tumour until the third policy year, 'after 2 consecutive renewal';.
• Skin, dental and behaviour. Generali Central excludes 'Any Claim arising from skin related treatments' and all dental work except after an accident. HDFC ERGO excludes behavioural treatment and training, supplements, probiotics and tracking devices. Digit sells dental and behavioural cover as optional add-ons instead.
• Breeding, working and fighting. All five exclude spaying, castration, pregnancy and whelping as routine care; Digit alone sells birth complications, including an emergency caesarean, as Optional Cover 1. Racing, coursing, commercial guarding and organised fighting are excluded by four of the five unless a commercial-use extension is bought, and Bajaj's extension is closed to 'pet breeders breeding the pets solely from the perspective of selling them';.
• Unvaccinated disease. Generali Central's general exclusion 2, HDFC ERGO's viii and Bajaj's 2 use the same sentence, 'Any Claims for diseases for which preventive medicines/vaccines has not been taken'. New India excludes death from distemper, rabies, viral hepatitis, leptospirosis and viral enteritis unless the dog was vaccinated and a vet certifies it.

Routine care is out everywhere, and the lists are near identical. HDFC ERGO's clause v excludes 'vaccination, micro-chipping, spaying, castration, Cryptorchidism (retained testes), grooming, nail clipping, dental scaling, whelping, kittening, bathing, dematting, killing and controlling fleas and worms';. Tick prevention is your cost, though Digit sells babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, haemobartonellosis and heartworm treatment as Optional Cover 4; the tick prevention guide covers the prevention side.

Waiting periods, entry and exit age, by policy

The waiting period on a pet policy in India runs from 15 to 30 days for illness, 0 to 7 days for an accident, and 12 months for the conditions an insurer singles out; the entry age runs from 8 weeks or 3 months to between 4 and 9 years depending on the dog's size.

The eligibility criteria are written into the wording, and two of them contradict the sales page. Generali Central's prospectus sets maximum entry at 108 months for small, medium and large dogs and 60 months for giant breeds, with cover ending at 120 and 84 months; its product page says 'Entry age - 3 months onwards up to age of 10 years' and 'up to age of 7 years' for giants. The prospectus is dated 11 March 2026 and says the policy document holds for legal interpretation, so the 9-year and 5-year limits govern. Bajaj's page says 'Claims arising out of accidents are excluded during the initial ninety-day waiting period';; its wording of 9 August 2026 sets a 20-day wait that is 'Not Applicable For Claims arising out of any Accident', and the wording governs.

Size decides age for two insurers. Generali Central classes a dog by adult weight, small to 10 kg, medium 10 to 25, large 25 to 40, giant above 40, and Bajaj closes its mortality, long-term care, OPD and theft sections to a giant breed over 4 and any other dog over 7 unless renewed without a break. A Great Dane bought at 5 has one insurer left. The HDFC ERGO wording prints no age at all; its 6-month floor and 5-year ceiling come from the product page, and Digit's ages sit in the policy schedule rather than in any of its three documents.

Renewal continuity is what keeps the waits from restarting. Bajaj gives a 30-day grace period during which the policy counts as continuous, and a later renewal is a new proposal with fresh waits. Digit restarts a waiting period on any increase in the sum insured. Generali Central and HDFC ERGO both state that the company is not bound to give notice that renewal is due; set your own reminder.

Sum insured, co-pay and deductibles

The sum insured on a pet policy in India runs from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5,00,000 for surgery, and the co-pay runs from 10 to 30 percent of every admitted claim, with a Rs 1,000 minimum OPD deductible at one insurer and a 40 percent share if a hospital stay is under 24 hours at the same one.

Restoration is rare. Generali Central restores the surgery and hospitalisation sum insured once a policy year after a paid claim exhausts it, but not for the same illness and not for the other sections. HDFC ERGO states that 'with each claim payment, Sum Insured shall be reduced by the claim amount paid' and offers no restore. Every rupee figure on this page was divided by 84.38 and by 74 to test for a converted dollar list, and none came out to a whole number of dollars: Rs 25,000 is USD 296.28 at 84.38 and Rs 200 is USD 2.37. These are rupee-native figures printed by Indian insurers.

What pet insurance costs: one printed premium and a spread of estimates

One insurer prints a premium for pet insurance in India: HDFC ERGO's Rs 200 a year, for a small pet under 2 years old, on Rs 10,000 of surgery cover; every other figure in circulation is an estimate, and the estimates run from Rs 315 to Rs 15,000 a year.

The insurers do not publish a rate card. Bajaj's page answers 'What is the cost of buying dog insurance?' with 'dependent on several factors, such as policy term, breed, age of the pet';, and Digit's prospectus answers 'we will provide you with the premium amount' after the proposal form. The one printed number is a footnote on HDFC ERGO's pet pages: 'The premium of Rs 200/year for the product HDFC ERGO Paws N Claws for a small pet less than 2 years of age for surgery cover of the customizable plan with a sum insured of Rs. 10,000 T&C Apply';. That is a floor for the smallest cover on the youngest pet.

• Forbes Advisor India, 1 April 2026 puts the Bajaj policy's 'minimum range of plan' at Rs 315 and says New India's 'basic premium is 5% of the sum insured' with a 20 percent co-pay; neither figure appears on the insurer's own page or wording.
• mypetinsurance.in, an intermediary reselling the Bajaj policy, prints 'Premium Starting from Rs.796/Year' with no date.
• Excel India IMF, an insurance marketing firm, gives 'basic accident only plans' at Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 a year and 'comprehensive plans' at Rs 8,000 to Rs 15,000, and calls them approximate.
• Pets Lifestyle, a retailer's 2026 Labrador cost guide, budgets Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 a year for pet insurance next to Rs 40,000 to Rs 80,000 per joint for hip surgery.

Those four sources disagree by a factor of 50 at the bottom. A premium is a quote, it moves with breed, weight class, age, sum insured and co-pay, and the only way to know yours is to run the same dog through each insurer's form on the same day. Bajaj's discounts are the one lever printed anywhere: 5 percent for an RFID tag and 5 percent for a medical report on a pet over 4.

How to claim: reimbursement, cashless and the documents required

To claim on a pet policy in India you notify the insurer within 24 hours of a death or major illness and within 72 hours of anything else, pay the vet, and submit the listed documents within 15 days; four products reimburse only, and Digit alone runs a cashless route through network veterinary hospitals.

The route is reimbursement almost everywhere. HDFC ERGO's page says 'We provide claims on a reimbursement basis' and its wording asks for notice 'within 24hrs for Mortality Benefit & Major Illness and within 72 hrs for all other sections';. Generali Central pays pre- and post-hospitalisation 'on a solely reimbursement basis';. Digit's wording sets out a cashless process, notice 72 hours before a planned admission or within 24 hours of an emergency, an e-card and a pre-authorisation form at a network veterinary hospital, with reimbursement as the fallback everywhere else.

1. Notify first, treat second. Call or email the insurer within the window in your wording, then get the pet to a vet. HDFC ERGO and Bajaj both make the notice a condition, and both will condone a delay only for reasons 'beyond the claimant's control' put in writing.
2. Use a registered vet. Every wording defines a Vet as a person holding a qualification recognised under the Indian Veterinary Council Act, 1984 and registered with a State or UT Veterinary Council; treatment by anyone else is excluded.
3. Collect the originals. Bills, prescriptions, diagnostic reports and the discharge summary in original, plus the vaccination certificates that three insurers list as a basic claim document.
4. Photograph or film the injury. HDFC ERGO asks for 'Photos or 30 second video of injury (bites, broken bones or lost limbs as applicable)' and, for a death, an attested death certificate and a colour photograph or 30-second video of the pet.
5. Submit within 15 days and keep the acknowledgement. HDFC ERGO's clock is 15 days from the event; Bajaj's is 15 days from notification.
6. Expect an offer within 30 days of the last document. Generali Central, HDFC ERGO and Bajaj all write that in, and Generali Central and Bajaj add interest at 2 percent above the bank rate if they miss it. HDFC ERGO's page promises settlement within 7 working days of the last document, and its wording allows 45 days if the claim is investigated.

The documents required change with the section. For a lost or stolen pet, Generali Central, Bajaj and Digit all want a police General Diary entry, notice within 24 hours and a copy of the newspaper advertisement, and Bajaj pays only after 45 days of no recovery and takes the money back if the pet turns up. For third-party liability every wording wants the FIR and the court order, because 'claims where no liability is established by a competent court or tribunal' are excluded. New India's claim form is a one-page death form: pet name, cause of death, the death certificate date and the vet's name and address. Every wording excludes the vet's fee for filling the claim form, and a disclaimed claim not taken to court within 12 months is 'deemed to have been abandoned' under the Generali Central and Bajaj wordings.

Microchips, KCI papers and vaccination: the conditions inside the wording

No pet policy in India makes a microchip or Kennel Club of India registration compulsory, but four wordings reward or request them, one demands a KCI certificate for a pedigree-level sum insured, and all five make an up-to-date vaccination record a condition of paying for any disease a vaccine prevents.

Identification: photographs are the floor, a chip is the discount

Identification is done by pictures unless you have a chip. New India requires a vet's fitness certificate issued within 30 days and identification by 'Tattooing, Nose print, Photographs, Pedigree record, Kennel Club record, Municipal corporation certificate';; the dog registration guide explains the municipal certificate. Bajaj wants 'Video of the pet walking and Color Photos from all sides (With newspaper of Proposal date in same frame or through Insurance Wallet) or Color Photo of RFID tag with the Identification Number clearly visible', and gives 5 percent off for the tag. Digit's prospectus lists a 'Microchip Dog Discount';. HDFC ERGO asks at claim time for the 'RFID Tagging ID, if available', the municipal or canine club registration 'if available', and 'Micro Chip Details, if available';. Get the dog microchipped before you buy and the claim file is half built.

KCI registration: needed for one thing only

Kennel Club of India papers matter only when you insure the dog for what it cost. Bajaj asks for a 'Pedigree Certificate from the Kennel Club of India (only if opting for a Sum Insured applicable to pedigree lineage)' and purchase proof above the maximum price in its pricing matrix for the breed. No other wording mentions the KCI. An unregistered, adopted or indie dog is insurable on every product; what it cannot get is a pedigree-priced mortality sum. The KCI registration guide covers what the certificate proves and what it does not, which is health. One clause cuts the other way for adopted animals: Digit's theft-or-straying and mortality covers are 'not applicable if your Insured Pet is adopted by you or gifted to you';, so an owner who took a dog from the street, which the free-ranging dogs guide covers, buys Digit for the vet bills and not for the lump sums.

Vaccination: the condition that voids the disease claim

Vaccination is written as a duty. Bajaj's general condition 6 says the insured must 'keep the pet vaccinated for rabies, distemper, hepatitis, adeno virus, leptospirosis, para-influenza, corona and parvovirus during the entirety of the Policy Period' under vet supervision. HDFC ERGO's adequate-care condition names distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, parvovirus, rabies, kennel cough and corona. Digit's exclusion 35 refuses treatment for any illness whose vaccine was recommended and rejected, and lists nine dog and seven cat vaccines including feline leukaemia, FIP and FIV. The dog vaccination schedule and the cat vaccination schedule set out what an Indian clinic gives and when; keep the certificates, because a parvo claim on an unvaccinated puppy is excluded by all five.

What IRDAI does, and does not do, for pet insurance

IRDAI does four things for a pet policy that its own documents record: it allots the UIN under the Insurance Products Regulations, 2024, it binds the insurer to the 2024 policyholder-protection duties, it runs the Bima Bharosa complaint portal, and it appoints the Insurance Ombudsman; it does not set the premium or keep a pet-specific rulebook.

Product approval is the insurer's own committee, not the regulator's desk. The IRDAI (Insurance Products) Regulations, 2024, notified in Hyderabad on 20 March 2024 and in force from 1 April 2024, define 'use and file' as launching a product after the UIN is assigned 'without prior filing to the Authority', require a Board-constituted Product Management Committee that ensures 'products falling under Use and file category are approved', and let the Competent Authority 'direct insurer to withdraw any product, if it is not in the interest of policyholders';. Pricing is governed by the principle that 'the premium rates are fair and not excessive, inadequate, unfairly discriminatory', not by a tariff. Schedule II classes a pet policy sold to a household as a retail general product; the human health-insurance protections in Schedule III, portability, migration and the 36-month cap on specific waiting periods, apply 'to health insurance products' and appear in no pet wording read for this guide.

The policyholder-protection regulations of the same date bind the claim process. The IRDAI (Protection of Policyholders' Interests, Operations and Allied Matters of Insurers) Regulations, 2024 require that the claim documents are 'listed in the policy document', that the insurer 'call for all necessary documents as specified in the policy document at one go and avoid calling such documents/information in a piece meal manner', that claims are settled within the turnaround times in the insurer's Board-approved policy, that a customer information sheet accompanies every policy, and that no insurer 'shall prohibit, bar or discourage any policyholder or claimant from lodging any grievance to the Authority';. The 30-day free-look period in Regulation 20 applies to life and new individual health policies; a pet policy follows its own cancellation clause, which for Bajaj is a refund scale from 100 percent within 15 days to nil after 180.

1. Complain to the insurer in writing through the grievance officer named in the wording; every wording read here prints an email and an escalation address, and the regulations require the procedure to be on the insurer's website.
2. Escalate to Bima Bharosa at bimabharosa.irdai.gov.in, IRDAI's integrated grievance management system, which every wording names and whose home page says 'Your complaint will be attended to within 14 days';.
3. Go to the Insurance Ombudsman if the insurer rejects the complaint or does not reply within one month; the complaint must be made within one year and the compensation sought must not exceed Rs 50 lakh. The Council's page still carries an older Rs 30 lakh figure in a commented-out line of its code; the live checklist says Rs 50 lakh, and that governs today.

The wordings print the Ombudsman offices by jurisdiction, so you write to the one for your address, not the insurer's. Mumbai covers the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Goa, Pune the rest of Maharashtra including Navi Mumbai and Thane, Bengaluru covers Karnataka, Chennai covers Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, Hyderabad covers Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Delhi covers Delhi with the Gurugram, Faridabad, Sonepat and Bahadurgarh districts of Haryana, Kolkata covers West Bengal, Sikkim and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Ahmedabad covers Gujarat.

None of this is a pet-insurance rulebook. No IRDAI document read for this guide fixes a pet waiting period, a co-pay ceiling or a claim turnaround for animals, which is why the five wordings differ on all three. What the regulator gives a pet owner is a product number to check, a duty on the insurer to ask for documents once and settle on its own published timeline, and two free places to complain.

Is pet insurance worth it in India: a decision frame with breed costs

Pet insurance in India is worth buying when the annual premium is a small fraction of a treatment your animal is likely to need and the wording actually pays for that treatment; it is not worth buying when the condition your breed is known for is excluded, capped or waiting-listed.

Start from the cost the breed pages already publish. The Labrador Retriever page carries a published Indian figure of Rs 40,000 to Rs 80,000 per joint for hip dysplasia surgery, from a 2026 retailer's cost guide; against a Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 estimated premium from the same source, one joint is 3 to 16 years of premiums. Then read the hip clause: Bajaj excludes it without an add-on bought at inception, Digit waits 12 months, HDFC ERGO caps it as a minor illness. The German Shepherd page carries the same hip arithmetic. The Pug page names airway surgery as the cost its monthly estimates leave out and the Persian cat page names polycystic kidney disease; Digit excludes the airway condition by name, and kidney failure sits in the lump-sum lists of Generali Central, Bajaj and Digit rather than in the reimbursement sections.

1. Name the two or three conditions your breed is known for from its Bonbeno page, with the rupee figure where the page has one.
2. Find each condition in the wording, in the exclusions, the specific waiting periods and the minor-or-major table, and write down whether it is paid in full, capped, delayed or refused.
3. Get quotes from every insurer that pays for it, on the same day, at the same sum insured and co-pay, and compare the annual premium with the treatment cost.
4. Check the age and species gates in the waiting-period table before you get attached to a product; a 6-year-old giant breed or a cat has fewer choices.
5. Buy before the first symptom, because every definition of pre-existing disease reaches back to signs and behaviour, not only diagnoses, and Digit's reaches back 24 months.

Two things this guide does not do. It does not rank the five products, because the right one depends on the animal, its age and the condition you are buying against. And it does not replace the vet: your nearby registered veterinarian decides what your animal needs, and the insurer's wording decides what it pays for. Read both before you sign, and keep the vaccination certificates, the microchip number and the photographs where you can find them at 11 at night.