Why Purebred Isn\’t Always The Way to Go: What Your Dog May Be Doing To Your Homeowners Insurance
By Anthony Peck
Whoever said all men are created equal really needed to take the time to extend that consideration to man’’s best friend. In most homes pets are as much a part of the family as the sporadic relative that comes visiting every now and again, but no one ever thought to raise your homeowners insurance premiums just because your sister’’s three boys are coming to visit and they”ve never even heard of the word “walk”. Your purebred canine is another story altogether.
There are very few categories with which to work when you”re talking about homeowners insurance and liability claims (what you owe if someone is injured on your property by, oh, say, slipping on the floor you told them three times was wet or falling over the roller skates your son just can”t remember to put away). Obviously, you”ve got your slips and falls. You”ve got your scratches, burns and malfunctioning equipment. And you”ve got your dog bites.
Dog bites account for over 4.7 million pet related injuries every year, and they rack up a hefty total when it comes to emergency room bills and lawsuits. Guess who’’s going to be footing the bill for those bills? You got it. Your homeowners insurance provider.
Every homeowners insurance policy has a clause relating to personal liability in cases like this, where people are injured either through carelessness (yours or theirs) or foolishness (usually theirs). Unfortunately, pedestrians who decide to walk up to a fence and stick their fingers in to pet the nice, barking doggy qualify as your responsibility. As Dr. Robert Hartwig, Chief Economist of the Insurance Information Institute in New York, says, “A dog would be considered an ”attractive nuisance” for which you”ll be unable to pin the blame on someone else.”
Insurers have their own personal “bad dog” list, and on it are the names of the breeds that have statistically been involved in a greater number of dog bite incidents over the years. That list varies in accordance with popularity of certain breeds but can usually be counted on to include Dobermans, Rottweilers, Akitas, German Shepherds and Wolf Hybrids, to name a few. This list can spell the beginning of the end for your insurance premiums if you welcome one of these pups into your home.
The good news is, they”ve left you a loophole-one that can save your budget on multiple fronts. These lists apply to purebred dogs, who are more likely to demonstrate the breed’’s tendencies toward violent behavior than their mixed cousins. So you can walk down to the local pound, pick up a mutt and no one’’s going to think twice about it! Sure, they may take the dog’’s weight and size into consideration, but that isn”t going to have the immediate, dastardly effect on your homeowners insurance that picking up a Pinscher or Alaskan Malamute from a breeder would have.
And you”d be giving a lonely pup a good home at the same time.
Regardless of how attractive owning a purebred dog might be, unless you intend to breed it picking up a pup with a little traveling salesman thrown into the mix is going to be the best choice you can make when it comes to keeping your homeowners insurance premiums low-or being approved for insurance coverage at all.
About The Author
Anthony M. Peck is the Senior Developer, Software Project Manager, and
Director of Business Development for QuoteScout.com. For more information on homeowners insurance for dog lovers, please visit
them on the web at http://www.QuoteScout.com.