The past five years has seen eight per cent of Brits lose pets, figures from Sainsbury’s Pet Insurance have revealed. Since the end of 2002, 61 per cent of the four million Brits who have lost pets were never reunited with them again, despite efforts to advertise their pet’s disappearance. Of those owners who haven’t been reunited with their pets, a quarter believed the animal was stolen.
Insurance policies are increasingly offering support towards retrieving lost pets, by paying for advertising costs or rewarding anyone able to reunite the pet with its owners. Currently a quarter of pet insurers offer little or no support when recovering lost dogs, whilst a fifth offer little or no assistance towards attempts to recover lost cats .
Pet owners will most commonly ask their neighbours for help when attempting to locate a missing pet, whilst nearly half of those who have lost a pet in recent years advertised their pet’s absence by putting up posters in their neighbourhood.
