dangerous dog conference - Page 2

I had no problem with MetLife. They have a tiered system for the dogs and the GSD does not fall in their No. 1 category as a "dangerous dog". I think they are in category 2. Sunny

I just got another good tip, AAA evidentally doesn't ask about pets.

jbbrbx I have State Farm and my agent told me that they don't care what type of dog you have. They will cover the first bite then depending on the type situation the bite took place in will depend if they continue to cover you or not. They will not however cover a 2nd bite if they decide not to drop you altogther, you have to sign a waiver after the first incident saying dog situations are not covered. Just a little info I gathered when I purchased my home.

okay, we need to send a message to the insurance companies. Find one company willing to insure us and only do business with that company for ALL our insurance needs. MAKE IT PUBLIC ON OUR MESSAGEBOARDS. Let us all join together and consolidate our monies. If an insurance company has GSD on the hit list, then we DO NOT DO BUSINESS with them for any insurance needs. DO NOT insure cars, homes or health with any affiliate that does not insure our dogs! If we join in number, we can defeat Goliath.

I still have a rottweiler and transferred to pa and cant even get renters insurence while i am waiting for house closing on my new place! I feel like im made to be a criminal owning my dogs or walking them even in public! Do we euthanise humans that show a tendacy for violence in their race statistics? are people who own houses in places where the crime rate is higher get refused insurence becuase the chances are there that sombody will break in? Its simply a copout by insurence companies on behalf of the officials to ban breeds in a back door atempt infringement on your rights!!

Elizabeth, Your idea is not bad. I work in the insurance industry however and would like to just add some insight to the insurance market. The insurance you have on your dogs in your homeowners policy is a freebee. It is a throw-in and does not cost anything. The homeowners insurance market has just had huge losses through the huricanes in Florida, not to mention mold claims and other normal homeowners losses that occur everyday. I recognized the problem here in the USA about 1 year ago. In Germany for example, there is no homeowners policy. You would have a liability policy on your home, a personal liability policy for your dog and a property policy for your house and contents. I attempted to find interest from insurance markets to write a separate policy for dogs, like in Germany and came up with no interest. I even tried to find German insurers that might be willing by way of reinsurance to back a US insurer. In all cases I came up with no interest. It is a simple fact that in the US one bite claim might result in a $1 Million plus liability claim. And how much are you willing to pay for a dog liability insurance cover? To cover that one claim, you would atleast have to have 2,000 dogs insured at a premium of $500.00 per dog. And this would still be a minus business for insurers. The homeowners cover extends to liability of the house dog. It is very unfortunate however, that one bite claim could result in cancellation or non-renewal of your homeowners insurance. And you need this cover because most of us have a mortgage on our homes. The personal lines market has taken a huge hit and it will take time to recuperate. In the long run, each of us will be placing our insurance with the insurance carrier that is the least expensive and provides the most cover and this is different from State to State. For what it is worth. . .

Thank you all so much. I have never had a bite and have many visitors to my kennel. All my dogs are very sociable and love everyone. A poodle is a bigger threat than my wonderful GSDs. Even the UPS man is safe...even though somedays I would like to bite him. Blitzen....I will address my dogs as show dogs and we dont do any protection training here. Jan ;-)

I have 2 GSDs and my home owners insurance carrier asked me if I had any dogs. He wasn't interested in my smoke detectors or the 2 fire hydrants on either side of my street just 2 houses away. But he was worried about my dogs. I said they are working dogs who are obedience trained and search and rescue trained. But that didn't matter. He would have preferred golden retrievers or labradors that incidently have a higher bite record in our area due to improper breeding. My friend who has trained police K-9s for 25 years is currently on a committee that is trying to change current dog bit laws here in Michigan. I would be interested in any information about that conference in Ohio.

State Farm came out and met my dogs. To many people who own them and keep them in the backyard, tied up and not socialized. Then one day, they decide to take them to the dog park and wonder why they fight. It would be better served to make it mandatory to have people take a class in pet ownership, dog training and social skills, before adpoting a pet.

Decoydogs, I listed the site for all the information on the conference in my message at the top of this thread.