Blog Post

Dog Bites Affect Home Insurance Costs


June 26, 2008
Topic: Dog Bites

It really is a dog's world in the insurance business. According to a new report by the Insurance Information Institute, dogs are biting a large chunk out of homeowner's insurance costs. In 2007 alone, dog bite claims were filed totaling more than $356 million. This was an increase of more than 15 percent over the previous year's figures.

According to the report, more than 4.7 million people suffer dog bites every year, and of these, 800,000 have injuries that are serious enough to warrant a hospital visit. More than half of these dog attacks occur on the owners' property, exposing the owner to liability claims. It's a figure that's beginning to worry many insurers, as the size of dog bite liability claims gets bigger. It's not that the numbers of dog bite attacks have increased; rather the cost per claim has risen exponentially with the increase in medical care costs, as well as greater jury awards that have risen above average in recent years.

As a dog owner, you might be held liable for a dog bite by your pet in any one of the following circumstances - if you knew your dog had a tendency to cause severe injury, if the injury was caused due to your negligence or if the state you live in, such as California, has a strict liability statute.

Most homeowner and renters insurance policies cover dog attacks from $100,000 to $300,000. If the claim is higher than this amount, then the owner is liable for any exceeding amount. The situation has gotten so bad, many insurers now ask customers to sign waivers with regards to dog bite liability. Others choose to charge higher premiums, making it harder for people to bear the cost of having a dog, while still others will only cover you if you take your dog to dog obedience classes. The Insurance Information Institute even advises customers to obtain an excess liability coverage that can help protect against personal liabilities, like dog bite attacks.

Of course, the best way to prevent these rising insurance costs and ensure that your dog is not treated like a pariah, is to take proper care to prevent any dog bites from happening in the first place. Many dog bite attacks involve aggressive dog breeds, like Pit bulls, who have recently come under the scanner for their volatile nature and increased presence at the scene of a dog bite attack. It should be evident to anyone with a fair amount of commonsense that pets like this are best kept way from residential neighborhoods where children play on the streets, or where there's a school in the locality. These are dogs that can fly off the deep end for the slightest provocation and attack. The damage that they can inflict is long lasting and scarring, and yet, we have hundreds of dog owners every year who are careless enough to let their pit bull run lose on the streets, or, as it happened in the case of a boy recently, into his school

It seems like education and awareness are the only ways to stem the rising costs of dog bite liability claims. Otherwise, we might see the day not too far in the future when dogs are treated as exotic pets with inflated insurance cover charges.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of dog bites. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.


The California personal injury attorneys at The Reeves Law Group represent victims of accidents, injuries and wrongful death throughout California from our offices in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Ventura County, Fresno County, Kern County, Sacramento County, San Fernando Valley, Long Beach, Antelope Valley, Torrance, Glendale, Bakersfield, Santa Ana, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Ontario, and Victorville.