INSURANCE FIRMS TAKE A BITE OUT OF DOG OWNERS' HOME POLICIES

Mark Zaretsky , Register Staff 10/26/2003

WEST HAVEN — If Rottweilers were big, bad, fearsome, gooey pastries, Ricki would be a cream puff.

The 9-year-old dog sniffs a lot.

But she doesn’t jump on you. She doesn’t scratch or bolt out of the house. She usually doesn’t even bark when you approach her yard.

Ricki loves the neighborhood kids, who sometimes come over after school and ask if Ricki can come out and play.

Growls or bites? Forget about it.

"This dog doesn’t know what it means to sleep on the floor. She’s a cupcake. She’s a moosh," said Ricki’s owner, Colleen Young. "She loves other animals. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body."

But in the eyes of many insurance companies, only one thing matters: she’s a Rottweiler.

And because of that, Young just lost her homeowners insurance.

Boston-based One Beacon, after what had appeared to be a routine inspection, sent Young a letter saying it would not renew her insurance "due to increased exposure" as a result of "Rottweiler on premises." Young said her Milford-based insurance agent told her she could keep her insurance if she got rid of the dog.

After checking a host of companies — including All-State, GEICO, Travelers, AAA, Nationwide, Liberty Mutual and Progressive — Young ultimately managed to find new insurance at a slightly lower price.

She purchased it through Mark Wilkinson, a West Haven-based agent for State Farm who also happens to be a former Rottweiler owner, she said.

But "it was so depressing after all these companies," Young said.

The whole time she was thinking, "This is not fair."

Maybe so. But that’s life as a dog owner in an increasingly litigious world.

In 2001, insurers paid out $310 million in dog bite claims — one-third of all homeowner’s insurance liability claims. With those kinds of numbers, insurers across the nation are refusing to insure families with dogs they’ve deemed for various reasons to be "high risk."

At One Beacon, which has changed owners since it was known as CGU, some rules also have changed, spokeswoman Margaret Sheehan said.

"Where we may have been a little bit relaxed in our underwriting guidelines before … we’re taking a hard look now," she said.

"We do underwrite very carefully on homeowners policies when the risk also involves certain breeds of dogs," Sheehan said.

Sheehan would not discuss the particular breeds One Beacon focuses on, calling it propietary information.

Breeds on various insurers’ lists along with Rottweilers include German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, Akitas, chows, bull mastiffs, huskies, malamutes, Great Danes, St.

Bernards, wolves or wolf mixes and several breeds known as pit bulls.

The lists aren’t plucked totally out of the air.

Each year, 800,000 people are injured by dog bites and 20-25 people die from them — 70 percent of them children aged 12 or under, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

A 1997 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that from 1979 to 1996, the breeds known collectively as pit bulls were responsible for the largest number of the 199 dog bite related fatalities for which breeds were known — 60.

Rottweilers were second with 29, followed by German shepherds with 19, huskies with 14, Alaskan malamutes with 12 and Doberman pinschers and chows with eight each. Great Danes were responsible for six and St. Bernards and Akitas, four each.

Not all insurers have all the breeds on their lists. But for many, even mutts that contain any of the blacklisted breeds can result in an owner’s homeowners insurance not being renewed.

NOT FAIR

Dog experts say it’s not fair to blame the breed when it’s really the owner’s fault.

"You can’t say that a particular dog (breed) is dangerous," said Peter Piusz, the American Rottweiler Club’s delegate to the American Kennel Club.

"They need to deal with the problem directly — that when a dog is a bad dog, you have to protect the public from that dog," said Piusz, of Johnstown, N.Y. "It’s the owner’s responsibility."

If a dog is vicious, it likely is because of a bad owner rather than a bad breed, he said.

"Usually what you’re seeing are people who chain their dog up in the back yard and leave it unattended. They’re just bad dog owners," Piusz said. "It wouldn’t matter if these people owned Rottweilers or German shepherds or French poodles." But an insurance industry spokeswoman said there is logic behind the guidelines.

"Insurance covers risk" and "if you have a pet, it is possible that your pet will bite someone," said Alejandra Soto, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute.

Breed-specific insurance rules are the result of an increase in dog bite claims beginning in the late 1990s, Soto said.

"People are now getting awarded millions of dollars because an animal hurt them," she said. "If that wasn’t happening, then insurers probably would be able" to insure even dogs they consider to be higher risk, Soto said.

Soto acknowledged, however, that "to the one individual who has a dog who’s on this list and has never bit anyone … it may seem unfair."

While experts on big dogs point out that the nation’s leading biter is the cocker spaniel, Soto said "it’s not about how often your dog bites." What matters, is how much damage dog bites result in, she said.

"A Chihuahua may bite you and you just kick it," Soto said. "A pit bull may bite you and it could pull your arm out."

Not all insurance companies make breed-specific decisions, however. State Farm is among the few that don’t.

Wilkinson, the agent who ultimately did sell Young insurance, didn’t go by any breed list. Instead, he came to Young’s house and met Ricki.

"Great dog," said Wilkinson, who last owned a Rottweiler about three years ago. Ricki "was hanging out with me in the backyard while I was doing my inspections and my measurements."

Wilkinson said his main concerns are how many dogs are in a house, "whether or not they’re trained for attack purposes and whether they have any history of biting anyone."

He said Young’s case "is the first time I’ve heard" in which a dog owner lost their insurance because of the breed of the dog rather than its personal history.
But it won’t be the last.

"She’s not the only one," said Piusz of the American Rottweiler Club.

BAD OWNERS, BAD DOGS

Insurance companies in many cases have decided that whole breeds — mostly larger dogs from working breeds — are uninsurable, he said.

Such blanket decisions in turn have sponsored efforts to change legislation.

Pennsylvania, which doesn’t allow breed-specific insurance guidelines, frequently is held up as a model, Piusz said.

Pete Dettori, Northeast Regional Director of the American Rottweiler Verein —
and an insurance claims examiner by day — said it is the owners that should be held responsible, not the dogs.

"People go out and buy these dogs for the wrong reasons," said Dettori, president of the Rottweiller Enthusiasts Association of Long Island.Being a good dog owner involves "education … training," he said.

"It’s knowing what you’re getting into.

"People do make the dogs vicious, but quite often they do it unintentionally," he said. He pointed out that the Rottweiler, once bred for draft purposes, "is a farm animal," for example, and shouldn’t be cooped up in an urban environment.

"You would never go out and buy a great big motorcycle" without first learning how to ride it, Dettori said. But people "go out and buy high-powered dogs without ever going out and going to school.

"If you were taking your driver’s test and you were going to get a new car, you’re going to get an Escort," he said. "If you get a ‘Vette you’re going to hit someone."

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Mark Zaretsky can be reached at mzaretsky@nhregister.com or 789-5722.


©New Haven Register 2003