I own 5 mini dachshunds. Two were born blind and one is 12 years old and has no teeth. I guess my carrier will cnale me now. Go to any shelter in the New York metro area and see hwat kind of dogs they have. Most wiull probably never be adopted
Dog owner\’s from the East and West coast belong to the Department of Revenue here in San Jose.
More than ever they are responsible for the intravenous fraud in connection with State Farm Insurance and California Compensation Worker\’s Comp Practice.
HMO\’s…Foundation Health Plan
Who let the dogs out? The Department of Health.
The life line, the tow line and every imaginable social service\’s in the country contributed to the distruction of people\’s live\’s abroad and here in the U.S.
The dogs here like Malik M. Hasan, are the greedy Pakistan Army, sent here to America to infiltrate the health system and distribute funds to President Bush, for the annihilation of the Sunni\’s.
Who the dog handler\’s: Saudi Arabia
Shabi Khan you are the #1 protege in my case to enhance your totals of $$$$$$.
Get out, get out now…& State Farm Insurance, your sick!
Take Malik Hasan, M.D. Spy with you.
America has it\’s own deceptive medical association to deal with.
Got that AMA, CMA, Santa Clara Medical Association, Egyptian Health Net lover\’s.
Your AKC dog show is over.
Don\’t mess with my blood line, I\’ll track you down like the blood hounds you are.
And, if you haven\’t gotten my name right, that\’s in the scum doctor\’s reports you didn\’t bother to investigate.
Your attention to detail is costing live\’s, not only in California but, to the New York Coast.
If you have any objections to my comments, look in past complaints on a Arthur Lewis Messinger, M.D. the one who took the Oregon Trail to infiltrate.
I have a world view of what you let these monster\’s do to patients and there families.
You should be on notification to terrorism involvement with your lack of judgement and contemt for reality.
In case you don\’t understand, feel free to call…
Call often, I\’m not in any hurry to go anywhere! but, to stand up for the abuse you let the like\’s of President Bush envade Irag for with dollar projection\’s for the Spring 20th day of March.
One, my son did not contribute for, but you stole to advance.
One, more addition: If I find anymore coding to support your fraud including using my Grandfather\’s address on 127 Hinsdale Road, Camillus New York. 13031. You will be notified and notified plenty with my findings.
Stay out of my families records!
LA-Health Net. Your right, your balls. Full Court Press.
And, for your shiit friends in Irag, do your own dirty work. Don\’t act all surprised, don\’t act like you didn\’t know about the sanctions, and don\’t use that as an excuse! Your full intentions were to use that as an anchor for your cause.
Don\’t count that even the less educated can\’t determine your subjective motive\’s.
From my position, I see!
Killing, Property distruction is not the answere, Solutions find the answere. The creeps here in California are to bold in game, but lack in honor.
To California Compenstion Insurance Company and the Lawyer\’s who represent them.
My Father\’s Name is William Raymond Kegley, yes, I too know that you went through my entire apartment to gain information.
His date of Birth was 3-13-26, he died 10-10-1999. I didn\’t get to visit him as often as I wanted. For that I blame you!!!
He was in the South East Asia War, he was not into killing innocent women and children.
1972-1973, I missed him like any child who currently has a family member deployed or volunteered.
If he were alive today, and knew, what our government & President has given away as trophies for oil, money and the freedom and peace in American & Iraq, I belive he\’d die sooner, than later for treason.
Know your pace, expierence your pace, trust your pace.
That I do.
Do come any closer than you already are in my medical history or any social contacts to support your claims and your options are, all forward.
I\’ve worked with insurance carriers on both sides of the argument. My former employer (which did not write in NY) kept a list of \”prohibited breeds\”. Much of it was based on the isolated horror stories and media sensationalism of specific attacks, with the rest propped up by natural aggressive tendencies of the dog breed in question. Your typical offenders were all included (pit bulls, akitas, chows, etc.).
My current employer is much more enlightened. I recently conducted an in-depth study of our pet liability losses, and found that in our experience, breed was not an indicator of risk. Dogs from pomeranians to pit bulls, shelties to shepards were responsible. In most cases, they were either provoked, or the result of negligence on the part of the owners.
I say most, because there were cases where there was just a bad dog. I\’ve had that happen to me. We adopted a chow, and she was a vicious little beast from Day 1. Never had problems with dogs before or since. Sometimes you just get a bad, mean-tempered animal. Who knows if it was genetics, abuse by the prior owner, or something else.
But you can no more paint a particular breed of dog with a broad brush than you can any other species. Would you automatically consider all people of a particular ethnic background to be racist based on the actions of a few ignorant bigots? How about labeling an entire culture as terrorists based on one group of extremists?
We had a customer whose dog bit a relative. He said don\’t worry – if we take care of his medical bills he will be fine – he is family. Sure – next thing we know the reserve on the claim has increased to over $70,000.
Why doesn\’t the insurance dept. approve a dog-owners premium surcharge on homeowners policies? Perhaps that will loosen the market. While they\’re at it we could use a premium surcharge for exposures such as swimming pools, trampolines, guns, woodstoves, acreage over 5, etc. I own none of these and feel my premium rate subsidizes those who choose to have these increased exposures.
Why do they need to do a study?!? The unfortunate response to a blanket policy such as this is to get rid of the dog. Finding a new home for the animals will be next to impossible. Why? Are you going to adpoted an animal thats going to cause your ins. premiums to go up? Of course not! The simplest answer to this dilema is to have the insured sign a waiver(no liability coverage for dog bites) if they own one of the listed dogs. That way, they can have both and live quietly there after.
Nonsense. Do you really think an innocent third party, injured by dogbite will not attempt to recover even with a waiver. What about the sympathetic judge and jury?
WHAT ABOUT THE TRIAL LAWYERS?
You are a pet owner and your broker says you can\’t get liability insurance because of your dog. You ask for the names of all the companies that won\’t write you.
You find out who is the \”top dog\” at each of those companies. Send that person a letter explaining your dilemna. Ask them to let you know when they will be picking up your beloved pet to take to the local animal shelter for you since you cannot keep the poor thing any longer due to insurance problems. Don\’t forget to include a photo of your pet at their very cutest.
I agree, in principle, with Bob\’s post. As an independent agent, we will undoubtedly be looking at a lawsuit if we place a policy with Company A who excludes dog bites, when we also represent Company B who does not. Waiver or no waiver, once litigation is presented, the dog owner will seek to recoup damages somewhere . . . from my office!
Why not develop exclusionary language? If the homeowner is so assured that the dog is safe, why worry about Trial Lawyers and third parties that might become injured. Medical payments should be minimal anyways.
Better yet have the dog owners association pool member funds and create a captive/cooperative/mutual insurance company to provide dog bite coverage at a minimal premium. They should be profitable in no time. Then those of us that don\’t have this exposure should see our premiums drop.
Jeff is on the right track. If a dog owners group is convinced that coverage should be available, it should seperated from the homeowners forms and insured seperately through a seperate insurer or pool facility.
I for one dont have any dogs of the UNAPROVED BREEDS. However I dont think it is right to discriminate against certain breeds of dogs. There are BAD MEAN dogs in every breed and to single a handfull out is just plain discrimination in my mind. I myself am the owner of three Basset Hounds and a Lab mix.
The thing to do is have a universal dog exclusion on the insurance policies. So, if your dog bites someone the Insurance Company doesn\’t have to pay. It would comes out of the individuals(owners) pocket and/or garnish their future wages if they can\’t pay. Why have we removed our own responsibilitys and try to place it on everyone else. Today people don\’t want to be responsible for anything. If you want a pet and no responsibility get a pet rock.
The bottom line is that dog bites are the number 1 liability claims that home insurance companies pay out for. The last year was ove 310 mil in liability claims from dog bites, which make up a 3rd of liabibity claims. There are certain dogs ( i.e. pit, rotweller, german shepard, chow) that are at the top of the list for biting people. This is the reason that companies do not want to write ownerw with these breeds of dogs.
It is not fair to broad stroke ANY BREED because they are not ALL THE SAME! Right now there is a list of a chosen few so what happens when one day the isurance company says ok we decided now that we will insure NO ONE THAT OWNS A DOG regardless of breed and that is where it is heading. How is that fair?! If the insurance company said we arent going to insure any black person that lives in a bad part of town because they have a higher incidence of crime in their area or some crap like that everyone would be screaming discrimination and this is essentially the same thing .It is bottom line descrimination .
Nikki, if you pay a higher auto insurance premium because you’ve had two accidents and a DWI in the past three years, would you consider that discrimination? Most likely you would recognize it as a fair business decision based on prior actions. The same logic applies to most personal insurances. If you own a dog with a breed that has shown a propensity for biting human beings then you should expect to pay higher insurance premiums. There is plenty of discrimination in the world; this simply is not an instance of it.
If you recieve speeding tickets or a DWI yes you should pay more because you ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING that caused your insurance to go up. Refusing to insure because you have a breed that is on some list is YES in my book DESCRIMINATION.If that particular person had been dropped from another company for having a dog bite complaint on that dog then OK YES I would say then to deny coverage is warranted but not if the dog has did nothing to warrant refusal. Would you be alright with your auto insurance going up because you MIGHT GET A SPEEDING TICKET say because you drive a particular kind of fast car. The answer would be NO I AM SURE!
Nikki, you just made my point. Regardless of my driving and/or claim history, my auto insurance WILL increase if I purchase a sports car. Are you saying all Porsche owners are discriminated against by their respective auto insurance companies? I agree, just because I drive a fast car does not mean that I am going to have an accident. Nor does the fact that I own German Shepard mean that I will submit a dog bite claim. Yet in both scenarios I would expect to bear higher insurance costs. This isn’t anything new to the industry, it is common practice. I understand the point you are making, that a broad-brush approach is not fair to everyone, but the fact remains, this is purely a business decision. A risk management type decision, common to many businesses, not just the insurance business.
LLCJ yes these are dogs not people however it is my RIGHT to own one of them. I would be the one descriminated against saying you wont insure me is the point I am making.
REad E&O Joe\’s post about acceptable discrimination. Especially the point about porsches.
Yes you have a right to own a dog. But you don\’t have the right to insurance. Your insurance company has the right to refuse you insurance because of your choices.
Are life insurers discriminating against smokers and charging them substantially higher rates? Are porsche owners discriminated against for driving fast cars? Are Florida residents discriminated against for living in hurricane prone areas?
Insurance is about risk. Dogs are risky. Therefore an insurance company has a right to minimize it\’s risk.
Obviously, you feel strongly about this issue. however, emotion cannot rule the day. Rules based on objective evidence and logic should govern the way a business does business.
Some carriers in NY are excluding certain breeds in their personal liability policy language just like some carriers exclude trampolines in their policy language.
I don\’t know if they have been tested in court yet.
I just rec\’d my Safeco auto renewal today. There are 4 cars on the policy…one of which is my 2005 Corvette (C6). My wife\’s 2000 BMW 7 series costs 8% more to insure than the Vette and the Vette has $500 Collision ded, as the LP will not accept the $1000 I carry on all the others. We both have identically clean records, same annual mileage, etc. (No tricks here, either… everything is as stated.) IMHO all sports cars are not created or rated equally, just as all dogs are not, or should be. (The C6 will run away from a 911, but is generally even with a 911S, too.)
I do think some breeds of dogs are more agressive and statistics can back this up. How about a surcharge for people who have these types of dogs or other pets who may harm visitors?
If you don\’t have a dog when you take out the policy do you have to advise your company if you buy one mid-term?
I do think people need to be responsible for their choices but lets not totally exclude them. Some big dogs are nice and would not intentionally hurt anyone that did not attack them 1st.
I’m sorry, what is your point? That Safeco rates certain vehicles higher than others? That a corvette is faster than a Porsche 911? Am I missing something? I thought we had been discussing reasons why some insurance companies exclude certain dog breeds in their underwriting criteria.
Perhaps you were questioning my fast car/higher auto insurance scenario. If so, I still believe that, regardless of driving/claim history, one should expect to pay higher auto insurance premiums for a sports car (any sports car, ok?) than they would for, say, a mini van. If you are having difficulties drawing a parallel from that example to our dog discussion, I apologize.
I don\’t we should be penalized just because we have a \”vicious\” breed. I own a pit bull and a beagle. The beagle is more aggressive than my pit bull. The pit bull is the biggest baby ever, he loves everybody. So why should I be penalized just for owning this type of dog. I\’ve had him for almost 3 yrs now and he\’s not once hurt anyone. My ins carrier/Erie ins found about him and want to drop me. Where will my dog go now????
Perhaps you were questioning my fast car/higher auto insurance scenario. If so, I still believe that, regardless of driving/claim history, >>>one should expect to pay higher auto insurance premiums for a sports car (any sports car, ok?)
Only part of my response was sent…I may have used a character that snipped the rest off.
Briefly it said auto physical danage premiums are determined by symbols…the higher the symbol…the higher the premium. THe symbol for the Corvette is a 19, the Q45 20, BMW 740 23. The Q45 is only $4k more initially than the C6…the 740 is over $20K more, hence the higher symbol and premium, even tho it is driven by a lower rated married female.
The C6 costs $56k…a 911S about $95K…both perform within ticks of seconds of each other. The 911S will be more expensive to insure because it is foreign made, component parts are unbelievably expensive, it is more of a theft target and is driven by younger 30ish drivers. The Corvette is domestic built, most parts are domestic, it has a fibreglass body that in comparison can be easier to repair. The avg. Corvette owner is 51 yrs. old more than likely a less aggressive driver than one in their 30\’s. Physical damage rates are set by many factors, but theft frequency, accident frequency and severity, damagability in a minor accident, cost of components, all contribute to determining that symbol in addition to original cost new.
Yes it cost more to insure a Corvette than a minivan…as there are no $56k minivans.
I guess that I\’m lucky to have an insurance company that doesn\’t have a list for bad dog breeds. (State Farm ins.)I found this out when buying my first home 4yrs ago. So it does pay to look around.
The Dog Federation of NY and My Dog Votes (a couple of people printing stickers in a back room) are lobbying groups for FOR-PROFIT DOG BREEDERS, including puppy mills and dog fighters.
The interest here is protecting profits made by breeding dogs, specifically aggressive dogs, and the \”research\” will be propaganda.
They have no access to any shelter or rescue group\’s records, and in fact have harassed said groups in past.
I own 5 mini dachshunds. Two were born blind and one is 12 years old and has no teeth. I guess my carrier will cnale me now. Go to any shelter in the New York metro area and see hwat kind of dogs they have. Most wiull probably never be adopted
Dog owner\’s from the East and West coast belong to the Department of Revenue here in San Jose.
More than ever they are responsible for the intravenous fraud in connection with State Farm Insurance and California Compensation Worker\’s Comp Practice.
HMO\’s…Foundation Health Plan
Who let the dogs out? The Department of Health.
The life line, the tow line and every imaginable social service\’s in the country contributed to the distruction of people\’s live\’s abroad and here in the U.S.
The dogs here like Malik M. Hasan, are the greedy Pakistan Army, sent here to America to infiltrate the health system and distribute funds to President Bush, for the annihilation of the Sunni\’s.
Who the dog handler\’s: Saudi Arabia
Shabi Khan you are the #1 protege in my case to enhance your totals of $$$$$$.
Get out, get out now…& State Farm Insurance, your sick!
Take Malik Hasan, M.D. Spy with you.
America has it\’s own deceptive medical association to deal with.
Got that AMA, CMA, Santa Clara Medical Association, Egyptian Health Net lover\’s.
Your AKC dog show is over.
Don\’t mess with my blood line, I\’ll track you down like the blood hounds you are.
And, if you haven\’t gotten my name right, that\’s in the scum doctor\’s reports you didn\’t bother to investigate.
Your attention to detail is costing live\’s, not only in California but, to the New York Coast.
If you have any objections to my comments, look in past complaints on a Arthur Lewis Messinger, M.D. the one who took the Oregon Trail to infiltrate.
I have a world view of what you let these monster\’s do to patients and there families.
You should be on notification to terrorism involvement with your lack of judgement and contemt for reality.
In case you don\’t understand, feel free to call…
Call often, I\’m not in any hurry to go anywhere! but, to stand up for the abuse you let the like\’s of President Bush envade Irag for with dollar projection\’s for the Spring 20th day of March.
One, my son did not contribute for, but you stole to advance.
One, more addition: If I find anymore coding to support your fraud including using my Grandfather\’s address on 127 Hinsdale Road, Camillus New York. 13031. You will be notified and notified plenty with my findings.
Stay out of my families records!
LA-Health Net. Your right, your balls. Full Court Press.
And, for your shiit friends in Irag, do your own dirty work. Don\’t act all surprised, don\’t act like you didn\’t know about the sanctions, and don\’t use that as an excuse! Your full intentions were to use that as an anchor for your cause.
Don\’t count that even the less educated can\’t determine your subjective motive\’s.
From my position, I see!
Killing, Property distruction is not the answere, Solutions find the answere. The creeps here in California are to bold in game, but lack in honor.
To California Compenstion Insurance Company and the Lawyer\’s who represent them.
My Father\’s Name is William Raymond Kegley, yes, I too know that you went through my entire apartment to gain information.
His date of Birth was 3-13-26, he died 10-10-1999. I didn\’t get to visit him as often as I wanted. For that I blame you!!!
He was in the South East Asia War, he was not into killing innocent women and children.
1972-1973, I missed him like any child who currently has a family member deployed or volunteered.
If he were alive today, and knew, what our government & President has given away as trophies for oil, money and the freedom and peace in American & Iraq, I belive he\’d die sooner, than later for treason.
Know your pace, expierence your pace, trust your pace.
That I do.
Do come any closer than you already are in my medical history or any social contacts to support your claims and your options are, all forward.
Continue
or
Discontinue! My family is not stock!
I don\’t know of any copany that has cancelled an insured because they own a
dachshund. Owners of bull terriers you have a problem.
I\’ve worked with insurance carriers on both sides of the argument. My former employer (which did not write in NY) kept a list of \”prohibited breeds\”. Much of it was based on the isolated horror stories and media sensationalism of specific attacks, with the rest propped up by natural aggressive tendencies of the dog breed in question. Your typical offenders were all included (pit bulls, akitas, chows, etc.).
My current employer is much more enlightened. I recently conducted an in-depth study of our pet liability losses, and found that in our experience, breed was not an indicator of risk. Dogs from pomeranians to pit bulls, shelties to shepards were responsible. In most cases, they were either provoked, or the result of negligence on the part of the owners.
I say most, because there were cases where there was just a bad dog. I\’ve had that happen to me. We adopted a chow, and she was a vicious little beast from Day 1. Never had problems with dogs before or since. Sometimes you just get a bad, mean-tempered animal. Who knows if it was genetics, abuse by the prior owner, or something else.
But you can no more paint a particular breed of dog with a broad brush than you can any other species. Would you automatically consider all people of a particular ethnic background to be racist based on the actions of a few ignorant bigots? How about labeling an entire culture as terrorists based on one group of extremists?
Oh well. Off the soap box.
To Continue, since my time is ripe.
My son\’s birthday, social security number, no matter how you use it, is exposed.
I figured your codes, And if you have any objections to THAT!!! Your discredit!
Come March 20th, 2006, his 18th Birthday will be celebrated for what it meant to me.
Not, your records keeping or any other tangible profit attachment you peg for yourselves.
We had a customer whose dog bit a relative. He said don\’t worry – if we take care of his medical bills he will be fine – he is family. Sure – next thing we know the reserve on the claim has increased to over $70,000.
Why doesn\’t the insurance dept. approve a dog-owners premium surcharge on homeowners policies? Perhaps that will loosen the market. While they\’re at it we could use a premium surcharge for exposures such as swimming pools, trampolines, guns, woodstoves, acreage over 5, etc. I own none of these and feel my premium rate subsidizes those who choose to have these increased exposures.
Why do they need to do a study?!? The unfortunate response to a blanket policy such as this is to get rid of the dog. Finding a new home for the animals will be next to impossible. Why? Are you going to adpoted an animal thats going to cause your ins. premiums to go up? Of course not! The simplest answer to this dilema is to have the insured sign a waiver(no liability coverage for dog bites) if they own one of the listed dogs. That way, they can have both and live quietly there after.
Nonsense. Do you really think an innocent third party, injured by dogbite will not attempt to recover even with a waiver. What about the sympathetic judge and jury?
WHAT ABOUT THE TRIAL LAWYERS?
You are a pet owner and your broker says you can\’t get liability insurance because of your dog. You ask for the names of all the companies that won\’t write you.
You find out who is the \”top dog\” at each of those companies. Send that person a letter explaining your dilemna. Ask them to let you know when they will be picking up your beloved pet to take to the local animal shelter for you since you cannot keep the poor thing any longer due to insurance problems. Don\’t forget to include a photo of your pet at their very cutest.
I agree, in principle, with Bob\’s post. As an independent agent, we will undoubtedly be looking at a lawsuit if we place a policy with Company A who excludes dog bites, when we also represent Company B who does not. Waiver or no waiver, once litigation is presented, the dog owner will seek to recoup damages somewhere . . . from my office!
Why not develop exclusionary language? If the homeowner is so assured that the dog is safe, why worry about Trial Lawyers and third parties that might become injured. Medical payments should be minimal anyways.
Better yet have the dog owners association pool member funds and create a captive/cooperative/mutual insurance company to provide dog bite coverage at a minimal premium. They should be profitable in no time. Then those of us that don\’t have this exposure should see our premiums drop.
Jeff is on the right track. If a dog owners group is convinced that coverage should be available, it should seperated from the homeowners forms and insured seperately through a seperate insurer or pool facility.
I for one dont have any dogs of the UNAPROVED BREEDS. However I dont think it is right to discriminate against certain breeds of dogs. There are BAD MEAN dogs in every breed and to single a handfull out is just plain discrimination in my mind. I myself am the owner of three Basset Hounds and a Lab mix.
I myself think I am paying through the nose for insurance and it should cover. Thatis what you pay those godawful premiums for!
The thing to do is have a universal dog exclusion on the insurance policies. So, if your dog bites someone the Insurance Company doesn\’t have to pay. It would comes out of the individuals(owners) pocket and/or garnish their future wages if they can\’t pay. Why have we removed our own responsibilitys and try to place it on everyone else. Today people don\’t want to be responsible for anything. If you want a pet and no responsibility get a pet rock.
The bottom line is that dog bites are the number 1 liability claims that home insurance companies pay out for. The last year was ove 310 mil in liability claims from dog bites, which make up a 3rd of liabibity claims. There are certain dogs ( i.e. pit, rotweller, german shepard, chow) that are at the top of the list for biting people. This is the reason that companies do not want to write ownerw with these breeds of dogs.
It is not fair to broad stroke ANY BREED because they are not ALL THE SAME! Right now there is a list of a chosen few so what happens when one day the isurance company says ok we decided now that we will insure NO ONE THAT OWNS A DOG regardless of breed and that is where it is heading. How is that fair?! If the insurance company said we arent going to insure any black person that lives in a bad part of town because they have a higher incidence of crime in their area or some crap like that everyone would be screaming discrimination and this is essentially the same thing .It is bottom line descrimination .
Nikki, if you pay a higher auto insurance premium because you’ve had two accidents and a DWI in the past three years, would you consider that discrimination? Most likely you would recognize it as a fair business decision based on prior actions. The same logic applies to most personal insurances. If you own a dog with a breed that has shown a propensity for biting human beings then you should expect to pay higher insurance premiums. There is plenty of discrimination in the world; this simply is not an instance of it.
If you recieve speeding tickets or a DWI yes you should pay more because you ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING that caused your insurance to go up. Refusing to insure because you have a breed that is on some list is YES in my book DESCRIMINATION.If that particular person had been dropped from another company for having a dog bite complaint on that dog then OK YES I would say then to deny coverage is warranted but not if the dog has did nothing to warrant refusal. Would you be alright with your auto insurance going up because you MIGHT GET A SPEEDING TICKET say because you drive a particular kind of fast car. The answer would be NO I AM SURE!
Nikki, you just made my point. Regardless of my driving and/or claim history, my auto insurance WILL increase if I purchase a sports car. Are you saying all Porsche owners are discriminated against by their respective auto insurance companies? I agree, just because I drive a fast car does not mean that I am going to have an accident. Nor does the fact that I own German Shepard mean that I will submit a dog bite claim. Yet in both scenarios I would expect to bear higher insurance costs. This isn’t anything new to the industry, it is common practice. I understand the point you are making, that a broad-brush approach is not fair to everyone, but the fact remains, this is purely a business decision. A risk management type decision, common to many businesses, not just the insurance business.
Yup. That will work.
Sure.
Call the Donald. Maybe he can help too? While we\’re at it, call Bill Gates.
The problem with Jeff\’s idea (a good idea by the way), will be the capital necessary to fund such a venture by a pet owners\’ association.
In order for it to be actuarially credible, a substantial amount of money may be required, especially for legal defence costs.
Nikki, these are dogs not people.
LLCJ yes these are dogs not people however it is my RIGHT to own one of them. I would be the one descriminated against saying you wont insure me is the point I am making.
Nikki –
It is your RIGHT to own any dog you want. It is the insurance company\’s RIGHT not to insure you.
Not all discrimination is a bad thing…
LS
REad E&O Joe\’s post about acceptable discrimination. Especially the point about porsches.
Yes you have a right to own a dog. But you don\’t have the right to insurance. Your insurance company has the right to refuse you insurance because of your choices.
Are life insurers discriminating against smokers and charging them substantially higher rates? Are porsche owners discriminated against for driving fast cars? Are Florida residents discriminated against for living in hurricane prone areas?
Insurance is about risk. Dogs are risky. Therefore an insurance company has a right to minimize it\’s risk.
Obviously, you feel strongly about this issue. however, emotion cannot rule the day. Rules based on objective evidence and logic should govern the way a business does business.
Some carriers in NY are excluding certain breeds in their personal liability policy language just like some carriers exclude trampolines in their policy language.
I don\’t know if they have been tested in court yet.
I just rec\’d my Safeco auto renewal today. There are 4 cars on the policy…one of which is my 2005 Corvette (C6). My wife\’s 2000 BMW 7 series costs 8% more to insure than the Vette and the Vette has $500 Collision ded, as the LP will not accept the $1000 I carry on all the others. We both have identically clean records, same annual mileage, etc. (No tricks here, either… everything is as stated.) IMHO all sports cars are not created or rated equally, just as all dogs are not, or should be. (The C6 will run away from a 911, but is generally even with a 911S, too.)
FWIW
I do think some breeds of dogs are more agressive and statistics can back this up. How about a surcharge for people who have these types of dogs or other pets who may harm visitors?
If you don\’t have a dog when you take out the policy do you have to advise your company if you buy one mid-term?
I do think people need to be responsible for their choices but lets not totally exclude them. Some big dogs are nice and would not intentionally hurt anyone that did not attack them 1st.
I’m sorry, what is your point? That Safeco rates certain vehicles higher than others? That a corvette is faster than a Porsche 911? Am I missing something? I thought we had been discussing reasons why some insurance companies exclude certain dog breeds in their underwriting criteria.
Perhaps you were questioning my fast car/higher auto insurance scenario. If so, I still believe that, regardless of driving/claim history, one should expect to pay higher auto insurance premiums for a sports car (any sports car, ok?) than they would for, say, a mini van. If you are having difficulties drawing a parallel from that example to our dog discussion, I apologize.
I don\’t we should be penalized just because we have a \”vicious\” breed. I own a pit bull and a beagle. The beagle is more aggressive than my pit bull. The pit bull is the biggest baby ever, he loves everybody. So why should I be penalized just for owning this type of dog. I\’ve had him for almost 3 yrs now and he\’s not once hurt anyone. My ins carrier/Erie ins found about him and want to drop me. Where will my dog go now????
Perhaps you were questioning my fast car/higher auto insurance scenario. If so, I still believe that, regardless of driving/claim history, >>>one should expect to pay higher auto insurance premiums for a sports car (any sports car, ok?)
Only part of my response was sent…I may have used a character that snipped the rest off.
Briefly it said auto physical danage premiums are determined by symbols…the higher the symbol…the higher the premium. THe symbol for the Corvette is a 19, the Q45 20, BMW 740 23. The Q45 is only $4k more initially than the C6…the 740 is over $20K more, hence the higher symbol and premium, even tho it is driven by a lower rated married female.
The C6 costs $56k…a 911S about $95K…both perform within ticks of seconds of each other. The 911S will be more expensive to insure because it is foreign made, component parts are unbelievably expensive, it is more of a theft target and is driven by younger 30ish drivers. The Corvette is domestic built, most parts are domestic, it has a fibreglass body that in comparison can be easier to repair. The avg. Corvette owner is 51 yrs. old more than likely a less aggressive driver than one in their 30\’s. Physical damage rates are set by many factors, but theft frequency, accident frequency and severity, damagability in a minor accident, cost of components, all contribute to determining that symbol in addition to original cost new.
Yes it cost more to insure a Corvette than a minivan…as there are no $56k minivans.
I guess that I\’m lucky to have an insurance company that doesn\’t have a list for bad dog breeds. (State Farm ins.)I found this out when buying my first home 4yrs ago. So it does pay to look around.
The Dog Federation of NY and My Dog Votes (a couple of people printing stickers in a back room) are lobbying groups for FOR-PROFIT DOG BREEDERS, including puppy mills and dog fighters.
The interest here is protecting profits made by breeding dogs, specifically aggressive dogs, and the \”research\” will be propaganda.
They have no access to any shelter or rescue group\’s records, and in fact have harassed said groups in past.
Smoke and mirrors.
\”Owners\” equals for-profit breeders.