Ever wonder why insurance companies get so upset about pets and particularly dogs? Why do they need to know so much?
Well, it is National Dog Bite Awareness Week (really!), and I would like to share a few statistics that may help you understand why insurance companies get so paranoid about dogs.
- Insurance Information Institute reported the average cost of a dog bite on a homeowners policy in 2011 was $29,396
- Dog bites accounted for more than one-third of all homeowners liability claims
- Homeowners policies, not including business liability and workers compensation, paid
$479 million in claims last year - Most likely to be hospitalized were children under 5 and adults over 65 (the closer I get to that age, the less often I refer to them as seniors.)
- During the summer of 2011 a Washington Superior Court jury awarded a $2.2 million verdict — $100,000 in medical bills and $2.1 million for pain and suffering — to a woman who was attacked in her home near Tacoma, Washington, by two neighborhood pitbulls. The plaintiffs’ attorney sued the dogs’ owners, whose homeowner’s policies were limited to $100,000 each.
- Every year, about 800,000 dog bites are treated in emergency rooms (how many are untreated?)
- Work-related dog bites are also a significant injury problem – letter carriers and postal workers are third on the victim list. In 2022, 5,300 postal employees were attacked.
The other side of this story is that there is a good chance you may be the victim, in which case it would be good to know how to react. There are many great resources for bite prevention and here are just a few.
- USPS: 2011 brochure with tips for dog owners and delivery workers
- OSHA: Avoiding Animal Bites (PDF)
- UMN: Dog Bite Injuries and Fatalities
- Learn to Speak Dog
- World Animal Foundation.org: Dog Attacks by Breed 2024 – Dog Bite Statistics and State Fatality Data
Bulli Ray’s Occupational Dog Bite Safety, which includes some safety products, including a dog bite sticks and batons.