27 May Dog Bites
If a dog bites somebody, how do you get coverage under your insurance policy?
Before you buy a dog, it’s a good idea to make sure your insurance agent is aware that you have a dog in your home. You should also disclose the breed to make sure it is not an excluded breed.
The first place to look is your Home or Renters’ insurance and then look at your umbrella policy. It is very common for insurance companies to have an animal liability exclusion or endorsement on your policy which will be limiting dog bite coverage under your policy. If this is the case, you may have limited insurance coverage or none. The endorsement in the policy may be called Animal liability or canine.
On average there are around 4.7 million injuries from dog bites, 900,000 of which require medical treatment each year.
Remember, that most Umbrella use what is called “follow form” language, which mean, if it was excluded from the home insurance policy, it is also excluded from the Umbrella, all the umbrella policy is doing is increasing the limits of liability by 1 mil or more.
Some carriers limit coverage by excluding certain breeds from your policy. The most common exclusions are for: Pit Bull (Staffordshire Terrier), Doberman Pinscher, Presa Canrio, Akita, Chow Chow, Rottweiler, Wolf Dog Hybird, but check with your carriers, each may have a different list of a form of exclusion.
I am posting this in response to a friend calling me about her brother coming to visit from out of the country and the neighbor’s dog, a Pit Bull attacked him and he was severely injured and taken to the hospital she was asking what to do if they can sue the neighbor’s insurance. My response was you can try but they may have animal liability exclusion on their policy.
#Animalliability, #markerinsurance, #HomeInsurance, #DogInsuance
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