Nearly everyone asks about insurance at the same moment: after the crate is chosen and before the flight is paid for. It is the right question and it is usually asked the wrong way round, because the useful answer is not which policy to buy. It is what you are already covered for, which is usually less than it sounds, and what you can do at check-in to change it.
The short answer is that three separate regimes decide what an airline owes you if something goes wrong, and which one applies depends on whether the flight is international, domestic, or a freight booking. None of them pays what a family thinks a dog is worth. One of them can be raised by a sentence at the counter, and almost nobody uses it.
| Your booking | What sets the limit | The limit |
|---|---|---|
| International flight, animal with you | Montreal Convention, baggage | 1,519 SDR per passenger |
| International, animal shipped alone | Montreal Convention, cargo | 26 SDR per kilogram of the shipment |
| Flight within the United States | 14 CFR 254.4 | Carrier may not limit below $4,700 per passenger |
A Liability Limit Is a Ceiling, Not a Policy
An airline’s liability for your animal is not a matter of goodwill or of the fare you paid. It is set by treaty on international routes and by regulation on domestic ones, and both work as a ceiling rather than a promise.
That distinction matters. A liability limit is the most you can recover, not an amount anyone has agreed to pay. You still have to establish that the carrier is liable, and the limit then caps what follows. So the useful planning question is not “am I insured”, it is “what is the ceiling on this particular booking, and can I raise it”.
International Flights: the Montreal Convention Numbers
International carriage is governed by the Montreal Convention. Its limits are expressed in Special Drawing Rights, an International Monetary Fund unit whose value in dollars moves daily, which is why you rarely see a flat figure quoted.
The limits in force since 28 December 2024 are 1,519 SDR per passenger for baggage, and 26 SDR per kilogram for cargo. Those are the numbers that matter to a pet move, because an animal travels as one or the other.
Convert them and the picture becomes clear. The baggage limit is roughly two thousand dollars, and the cargo limit is per kilogram of the shipment, so a 30 kilogram dog and crate is capped at 780 SDR whatever the animal meant to the family. Both figures are set by treaty rather than by the airline, and neither is negotiable at the gate.
A Pet in the Hold Is Legally Baggage, at Least in Europe
Until recently it was arguable whether a pet in the hold counted as baggage at all. That question has now been answered, at least for flights within the reach of European law.
In Case C-218/24, decided on 16 October 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that “pets are not excluded from the concept of ‘baggage'”. The case came from a flight from Buenos Aires to Barcelona on which a dog escaped from its crate during handling and was lost. The Court concluded that “the compensation for the damage resulting from the loss of a pet is subject to the liability rules for baggage”.
Two things follow, and they cut in opposite directions. The Court stated that “the limit on an air carrier’s liability for the loss of baggage includes non-material damage as well as material damage”, so a claim is not confined to the animal’s market value and can reach the distress too. But the whole claim, distress included, then sits under that one ceiling.
This is a European ruling and it binds European courts. It is not United States law. What makes it worth reading anyway is that it is the clearest judicial statement yet of how the Convention treats an animal, and the Convention itself is the same treaty on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Special Declaration of Interest
Here is the part that is free, published, and almost never used.
The Convention allows a passenger to raise the ceiling. The Court described it plainly: “a special declaration of interest in delivery at destination allows him or her to increase the limit, subject to approval by the air carrier and to the payment of a supplementary sum if the case so requires.”
In practice that means declaring a higher value for the animal at check-in, before the flight, and paying whatever supplement the carrier asks. It is not automatic, the carrier has to accept it, and it has to be done at the time rather than afterwards. But it is the only mechanism that moves the ceiling at all, and it costs a conversation to ask about.
If you take one thing from this page, take that. Ask the carrier, at booking rather than at the gate, whether it accepts a special declaration of interest for a live animal and what the supplement would be. The answer will not always be yes. It is worth having in writing either way.
United States Domestic Flights: the $4,700 Floor
A flight inside the United States is not covered by the Montreal Convention. It is covered by a Department of Transportation regulation, and the regulation works from the other direction: instead of a ceiling, it sets a floor beneath which a carrier may not limit itself.
Under 14 CFR 254.4, on a flight segment using large aircraft, “an air carrier shall not limit its liability for provable direct or consequential damages resulting from the disappearance of, damage to, or delay in delivery of a passenger’s personal property, including baggage, in its custody to an amount less than $4,700 for each passenger”. That figure was last revised in October 2024.
Read the wording carefully, because two words in it do a lot of work. The damages must be provable, and they must be direct or consequential, which is the language of financial loss rather than of grief. And the rule constrains what a carrier may write into its contract; it does not by itself decide any particular claim.
Airlines set their own additional terms for live animals in their contracts of carriage, and those terms differ by carrier. Read the live animal section of the contract for the airline you are actually booking rather than assuming an industry norm, because there is not one.
Shipped as Freight: the Per Kilogram Ceiling
An animal shipped on its own is a freight booking, and freight has its own arithmetic.
The cargo limit of 26 SDR per kilogram applies to the weight of the shipment, which for a live animal means the animal and the crate together as the airline weighs them. That produces a counter-intuitive result: a heavier crate raises the ceiling. It is not a reason to buy a bigger crate, since crate sizing is governed by the animal and by the airline’s own rules, but it explains why two quotes with different ceilings can be equally correct.
Freight bookings are also where third-party cover is most often offered, usually by the agent arranging the shipment rather than by the airline. If you are offered it, the questions worth asking are narrow: what event triggers a payment, what is excluded, what proof is required, and who decides.
What Pet Health Insurance Is and Is Not For
Pet health insurance and transit liability are different products solving different problems, and conflating them is the most common mistake in this area.
A health policy is written around veterinary treatment. Whether it responds to something that happens in transit, and whether it responds while the animal is outside the country the policy was written in, are questions your policy answers and we cannot answer for you. Insurers differ, and a policy that covers a dog in Ohio may say nothing useful about the same dog in a cargo shed in Frankfurt.
Before you travel, put four questions to your own insurer in writing.
- Does the policy cover treatment while the animal is in transit?
- Does it cover treatment outside the country of issue, and for how long?
- Does it exclude anything arising from air travel or from boarding?
- Does it require notification before the trip?
We are not insurance advisers and we do not sell policies. What we can tell you is which of the three liability regimes above applies to your booking, and that is the fact those four questions hang off.
What We Can Change, and What We Cannot
The honest position is that most of what we do is designed to stop a claim ever arising, because none of the ceilings above is a substitute for the animal arriving well.
So the work is routing that avoids marginal connections, crates built to the standard the carrier will actually accept, paperwork that will not strand an animal at a border, and booking on carriers whose live animal handling we have used. Those are the levers that change outcomes. A liability limit is what is left when they have failed.
What we cannot do is insure an animal against the risk of being an animal. No coordinator, and no policy, makes a flight risk-free, and you should be wary of anyone who says otherwise.
Pet Travel Advisors has been moving animals since 2023. We are licensed and insured, our team is certified in the IATA Live Animals Regulations, and our documentation work follows USDA APHIS requirements. If you want the liability position for a specific route and carrier before you book, ask us and we will set it out.
Frequently asked questions
Is my pet insured when it flies?
Not in the way the word usually suggests. There is no automatic policy. What exists is a liability ceiling on what the airline can be made to pay if it is at fault, and which ceiling applies depends on the booking. International carriage runs under the Montreal Convention, United States domestic flights under a Department of Transportation regulation, and an animal shipped on its own under the cargo rules. All three cap the recovery well below what a family would consider the animal to be worth.
How much is an airline liable for if my pet is lost or injured?
On an international flight, the Montreal Convention limits in force since 28 December 2024 are 1,519 Special Drawing Rights per passenger for baggage and 26 SDR per kilogram for cargo. A Special Drawing Right is an International Monetary Fund unit whose dollar value moves daily. On a United States domestic flight, 14 CFR 254.4 says a carrier may not limit its liability for a passenger’s personal property below $4,700 per passenger on segments using large aircraft.
Can I increase the airline’s liability limit?
Sometimes, and this is the single most useful thing on this page. The Montreal Convention allows a special declaration of interest in delivery at destination, which the Court of Justice described as allowing a passenger “to increase the limit, subject to approval by the air carrier and to the payment of a supplementary sum if the case so requires.” It has to be made at check-in rather than afterwards, and the carrier has to accept it. Ask about it at booking.
Is a pet legally considered baggage?
In European law, yes. In Case C-218/24, decided 16 October 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that “pets are not excluded from the concept of ‘baggage'” and that compensation for the loss of a pet is subject to the liability rules for baggage. That means a claim can include non-material damage, the distress rather than only the money, but the whole claim sits under the same baggage ceiling. It is a European ruling and it does not decide United States law.
Does my pet health insurance cover the flight?
That is a question for your own insurer and the answer varies. Put it in writing before you travel and ask four things: whether the policy covers treatment while the animal is in transit, whether it covers treatment outside the country the policy was issued in and for how long, whether anything arising from air travel or boarding is excluded, and whether you must notify them before the trip.
Why does a heavier crate raise the cargo liability limit?
Because the cargo limit is 26 SDR per kilogram of the shipment, and for a live animal the shipment is the animal and the crate as the airline weighs them. It is an arithmetic consequence rather than a strategy. Crate size is decided by the animal and by the airline’s own requirements, not by the liability table.
Should I buy the insurance an agent offers me?
We do not sell policies and we are not insurance advisers, so we will not tell you yes or no. What we would ask before buying any of it: what event triggers a payment, what is excluded, what proof is required, and who decides a disputed claim. If those four answers are not in writing, you do not yet know what you are buying.
Sources
- Montreal Convention 1999, limits of liability as revised with effect from 28 December 2024.
- Canadian Transportation Agency, limits of liability for passengers and goods.
- Court of Justice of the European Union, Case C-218/24, judgment of 16 October 2025, press release.
- 14 CFR 254.4, domestic baggage liability, as revised October 2024.
Figures verified September 2026. Montreal Convention limits are revised periodically and the 14 CFR 254.4 figure is adjusted for inflation.
If you want the liability position for a specific route and carrier before you commit to anything, tell us what you are moving and where. For what happens at the border once the animal lands, see clearing a pet through customs.
Last updated 8 September 2026