10 years. Our pet business has basically been uninsured for 10 years.

Now don't take that to mean that we weren't paying insurance, because we have been paying lots of it — liability, workers' compensation, automobile and even umbrella insurance to fill in any gaps. What we haven't been paying for is any insurance that would actually cover a situation that we might encounter — a situation involving an animal.

Our business is twofold — holistic pet food store and pet grooming. Like many when we started, my wife and I knew animals but we had to learn a lot about business. We went to seminars, talked to fellow business owners and spent time reading.

We picked up some keywords on what we needed for insurance. A saying that was repeated over and over was to assure that your policy covered "animals in your care, custody and control."

When it came time to open our business, we ended up going with an agent who was referred to us by a friend with a similar business. We told that agent we needed coverage that included accidental injury to animals and the policy needed to say "in your care, custody or control."

He made a phone call to the underwriter who assured us of coverage and even faxed over the endorsement entitled "accidental injury to animals." Great. Years passed, and we never gave it a second thought. We had a few claims, nothing major — a minor workers' comp claim and a break-in at one point. Both of these claims were handled with no issues or problems.

It is sound advice to shop rates every once in a while, so we figured after five years it was time to look around. We took our existing policy and sent it to a few companies for quoting, always assuring that we would have coverage for animals in our "care, custody and control." We ended up finding some cost savings with another local agent around the corner from us.

Fast-forward a few years to current days. It seems that a lot of the boarding facilities were dealing with a respiratory virus that was running rampant around the city. I heard from another business owner that a boarding facility was paying for the treatment of all the dogs that were in their facility for boarding.

That situation is less likely to happen to a grooming facility, but it got me wondering whether we would be covered. The answer was no. I wasn't surprised. Few insurance companies have coverage for "kennel cough."

The underwriter faxed over exactly what coverage we had. It was a form I had seen before titled "accidental injury to animals." As I went through the form step by step with my agent, we both realized that I had no coverage for something that might actually happen. The key clause stated "caused by any of the specified causes of loss."

What that meant was if the building caught fire, the animals would be covered. If the building would happen to collapse, the animals would be covered. I started asking all the questions that keep me up at night like, "What if a dog jumps off of the table and breaks a leg?" Nope, not covered. It was then explained that I would need a "professional liability endorsement," which the company I was currently with does not offer for our industry.

I may preach "shop local" but I also preach "go with a professional." I wouldn't recommend getting pet food advice from the kid at the grocery store, get your advice from a professional. I wouldn't recommend getting your pet groomed from the lady who does it out of her garage, go to a professional.

Well, I finally followed my own advice and went to a pet industry insurance professional. I ended up getting a quote from one of the companies that I always see advertising directly to our industry. Not only did they have the exact coverage we needed, but I also ended up saving a few dollars.