A licence and an insurance policy are the two pieces of paper that separate a boarding business from a spare room with good intentions. Licensing means an authority has inspected the premises against set standards; insurance means the business has planned, in advance and in writing, for the day something goes wrong. Neither is glamorous, both are checkable in minutes, and a cattery that boards cats professionally should be slightly puzzled if you do not ask.
Start with your local rules, because they vary
Licensing requirements genuinely differ by jurisdiction: some areas license catteries through a local authority with graded inspections, others regulate them differently or under broader animal-business rules, and the honest first step is to check with your own local authority what applies where the cattery operates, what the licence is called, and whether a public register exists that you can search by business name and address. That check tells you exactly which document to ask to see, and protects you against a genuine-looking licence that belongs to a different scheme or premises. Where a register exists, verify the cattery appears on it before you visit.
Checking the licence, line by line
Ask to see the licence itself — a photograph on a phone is acceptable; a verbal assurance is not — and read four things on it. The business name should match the name you are booking under. The address should be the premises your cat will actually stay at, not a head office or a previous site. The document should be current, with dates that cover your cat's stay, not a licence that expired last season. And it should cover the scale of boarding you can see: a licence issued for a small number of cats attached to a facility clearly holding many more is a discrepancy worth a direct question. Behind those four checks sits what licensing actually buys your cat: inspected standards for pen space and construction, hygiene and disease control, fire and escape safety, staffing, and record-keeping, checked by someone with the power to require changes. A cattery cannot fake having passed an inspection it never had.
Interrogating the insurance, politely
Insurance needs questions, not just sight of a certificate, because policies differ enormously in what they actually cover. Ask what the policy pays for if a cat is injured or falls ill during a stay, whether escape is covered, whether emergency veterinary costs are advanced by the cattery or reclaimed by you, and what the procedure is at 2 a.m. — which vet they use, who authorises treatment, and how quickly you are contacted. Ask, too, whether the cover is the cattery's own business policy, since a household policy with a boarding sideline may not cover paying guests' animals at all. Satisfactory answers are specific and unhurried; a good operator has had this conversation before and usually welcomes it, because owners who check paperwork tend to be owners who provide accurate care notes and reachable phone numbers. Vague answers, irritation at being asked, or a certificate nobody can quite locate are each, on their own, enough reason to keep looking.
What paperwork cannot tell you
Licence and insurance clear the floor, not the ceiling: they prove a business is inspected and covered, not that your particular cat will be happy there. Still visit, look at pen size and cleanliness, watch how staff handle the cats already in residence, ask about feeding routines, medication handling and daily updates, and confirm the cattery's vaccination requirements for guests, which protect your cat as much as theirs. Then book a short first stay before a long one where you can, and review how the visit went against what the paperwork promised. Paperwork verified, you can relax a little — and the handover itself stays tidy in KinsLe, where the time-limited Care Pass shares feeding notes and authorisations only for the booked dates.