Pet Breeds and Insurance Coverage

Are you covered for the damage your Pet may inflict?

The insurance industry is clamping down on dog owners. Two tactics are being used:
Banning sales of policies to owners of certain breeds. (To read more about excluding dog bites from coverage, see Insurance for the dog owner.) Excluding dog bites and other dog inflicted injuries from coverage (in other words, the dog owner is covered for other things, but not canine inflicted injuries).

Currently, owners of pit bulls and Rottweilers have the most trouble finding insurance. Most companies look suspiciously at those breeds. See generally, Humane Society of the United States, "Insurance Companies Unfairly Target Specific Dog Breeds," January 2005.

Some companies have a comprehensive list. Here is the list from Automobile Club:
Pit Bulls & Rottweilers (No full bred or mix) Akita - including Japanese and Akita Inu Bernese - including Mountain Dog, Berner Sennenhund and Bernese Cattle Dog Canary Dogs - including Perro de Presa Canario Chow Chow Doberman Husky - including American, Eskimo and Greenland (Siberian is OK) Karelian Bear Dog Rhodesian Ridgeback Russo-European Laika - including Russian Laika and Karelian Bear Laika Any breed of guard dog trained to attack Wolf Hybrids The foregoing applies to both purebred and mixed breed dogs.

Overview - insurance for dog owners:

Every dog owner needs to have homeowner insurance or renters insurance that (a) provides coverage for, and does not exclude, injuries inflicted by dogs or animals in general, and (b) has a limit of at least $100,000 for personal liability. This type of insurance will enable the dog owner's insurance company to pay an appropriate amount of compensation for all but the most severe accidents caused by a dog. Because the dog owner's own relatives, friends and neighbors are the most likely victims of a possible dog attack, having insurance means protecting the people who are closest to the dog owner, thereby protecting valuable relationships and ensuring proper treatment of loved ones.

Given the fact that a dog is most likely to bite someone whom the dog owner loves most, it is recommended that dog owners have higher limits, such as $1 million, through either their homeowners and renters policies or by an "umbrella" policy. It is very inexpensive to obtain an umbrella policy.

Every dog owner is exposed to possible liability for dog bites and other canine-inflicted injuries. Dogs bite nearly five million Americans every year, children are the victims of the most serious attacks, and the annual losses equal approximately $1 Billion (see Dog Bite Statistics). These losses do not have to be borne by the dog owners and victims, because insurance is available to pay for it.

The good news for dog owners, accident victims and society is that homeowners insurance and renters insurance normally provide at least $100,000.00 in benefits for victims.

Other types of insurance also afford protection for the insureds. Examples include automobile liability insurance, which may cover dog bites that happen in a car, landlord insurance that protects the landlord (but not the tenants) from claims that result from the actions of renters' dogs, and workers compensation coverage which may apply to bites and injuries that happen "on the job." Some companies even sell dog liability insurance. See below for details.

At present, however, the insurance industry is attempting to sell homeowner insurance policies that exclude dog-inflicted injuries. Some insurance companies refuse to sell homeowner insurance to the owners of breeds of dogs that have a reputation for biting, such as pit bulls, Rottweilers, Akitas and Chow-Chows. Other insurers refuse to sell to anyone who owns any dog whatsoever. (See Breed specific laws, regulations and bans.)

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal summed up the problem this way:
Some big insurers, including Allstate and Farmers Insurance Group, won't cover homes in some states if residents own certain breeds. Others exclude some breeds from liability coverage, or charge extra for it. The so-called vicious-breed lists include German shepherds, Akitas and Siberian huskies, along with Alaskan Malamutes, Chow Chows, Doberman Pinschers, American pit bull terriers and their cousins. (M.P. McQueen, "Snarling at Insurers," Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2006.)

No dog owner should purchase a homeowner policy or renters policy that excludes canine-inflicted injuries, unless he or she buys a supplemental policy that covers them.

The insurance industry also is quietly revising homeowner policies that protected dog owners when they originally bought those policies. Homeowners must carefully read all of the short slips of paper and other notices sent from insurers, in case they eliminate coverage for accidents caused by dogs. If that happens, a dog owner must get a different policy or an umbrella that provides both the coverage plus higher limits of protection.

For all these reasons, dog owners need to learn about insurance.