PD Insurance’s 2026 pet trends survey has found that 83.2% of New Zealand pet owners support employers offering leave to care for a sick pet or grieve a pet’s death. That figure is up from 82.3% in the company’s 2024 Pet Parent Survey.
The data was highlighted as PD Pet Insurance introduced two days of dedicated pet bereavement leave for its 200 employees across New Zealand and Australia, effective October 1.
The policy sits on top of standard entitlements under the Holidays Act 2003, which grants eligible employees up to three days of paid bereavement leave when someone close to them dies but does not cover the loss of a pet.
PD Pet Insurance chief operating officer Michelle Le Long told 1News the company views the benefit as “cost neutral.”
“How often are you going to lose a pet? It’s not really the concern for us. It was more the actual being able to give people time to grieve when they lose their pets. The cost really didn’t come into the equation,” she said.
The two days can be taken together or separately and operate on a good faith basis.
For brokers advising employers on benefits packages, the survey results point to a widening gap between how New Zealanders view their pets and the financial protections they carry.
According to the 2024 NZ Pet Data Report from Companion Animals New Zealand, 63% of households own a pet, representing an estimated 1.26 million cats and 830,000 dogs. Yet only 15% to 20% of pets in New Zealand are insured, according to Vetlife, citing MoneyHub data from 2025.
Veterinary costs are adding pressure. Stats NZ CPI data, as published by Figure.NZ, shows the price of veterinary services rose 7.38% year-on-year in Q1 2025 and was still running at 4.02% in Q4 2025, above general inflation across both periods.
Read more: Revealed: top insurance claims for cats and dogs in 2023
Massey University professor of management and Māori business Jarrod Haar told 1News that while pet bereavement leave may appear to be “a bit of a gimmick” on the surface, there are real workplace benefits.
“Some people won’t use it because they won’t need to use it. But the person who does want to use it will be thinking, ‘oh, thank you for looking after me’ during what would otherwise just be a sad personal time,” Haar said.
He added that dedicated pet leave removes the need for employees to use sick leave when grieving a pet. “It is important to remember that legally, I could take 10 days sick leave. So I could take a sickie, but what [the employer] is saying is, ‘hey Jared, you don’t have to take a sickie. You can just say, “oh, my pet died and it’s really upset me. Can I have Thursday and Friday off?”’” Haar said.
The employee benefits market in New Zealand is already under scrutiny. Aon’s 2026 Global Medical Trend Rates Report forecast an 18% rise in NZ employee medical plan costs in 2026, while the Southern Cross and BusinessNZ Workplace Wellness Report 2025 put average sick days at 6.7 per employee, up from 5.5 in 2022.
Pet insurance as an employer-funded or voluntary workplace benefit has grown in other markets. In New Zealand, the combination of high pet ownership, rising vet costs, and low insurance penetration points to room for brokers to bring pet cover into a wider benefits conversation with employers.
Read more: The benefit workers want most is the one employers skip
Haar estimated most employees would only need pet bereavement leave approximately once every 10 to 15 years.
“It’s not going to cost companies a lot, but for the employee it might be really special couple of days,” Haar said.
Le Long said the move was partly prompted by the experience of the company’s head of operations, whose nearly 15-year-old dog was diagnosed with leukaemia and later died. “It was just devastating to watch Sheryl, she was trying to put on a brave face and she was coming into work and dealing with people. We just said, ‘look, just take some time, whatever you need,’” Le Long said.
