Dog bites wallet; wallet bites dog
What defines a household? Does the definition extend to animals kept as pets?
For housing, including affordable housing, the question is more than idle. Pets, particularly dogs, are more than an accoutrement: for many, especially the elderly, they are a source of emotional strength — and that, in turn, translates into health, well-being, and greater independence.
Conversely, though humans love their dogs, animals damage homes, apartments, and people. To insurers, that makes them actuarially relevant, as sniffed out by a dogged Boston Globe reporter:
Mary Ellis, who has owned Siberian huskies for 25 years, was incensed when her insurer canceled its policy on her
Mary Ellis and her husband Ben with one of their dozen huskys.
”No matter how you look at it, it’s profiling and discrimination,” said Ellis, who breeds and shows 12 huskies at her licensed home kennel, Mishnok Siberians. ”It lumps all huskies into one group along with other dogs that people may perceive as vicious . . . but the decision should fall on whether or not a person is a responsible owner, not on profiling a particular breed.”
If the dog were a person, these distinctions would be illegal, but a dog is not a person. Is the dog entitled to person-like standing under anti-discrimination laws? Some owners are foaming at the mouth:
Now, Ellis and other dog owners nationwide are fighting back. A proposed law, backed by the Massachusetts Federation of Dog Clubs and Responsible Dog Owners, would make it illegal for insurance companies in the state to refuse homeowners coverage based on specific breeds of dogs, or from charging higher premiums to people who own certain breeds. Ten other states have pending legislation that would prohibit breed-specific policies, according to the American Kennel Club.
Of course, this cure may be little help, since by prohibiting surcharges for some breeds it’s likely to lead to smaller surcharges for all breeds:
Dog owners routinely face rejection by insurance companies unwilling to underwrite homes with so-called aggressive breeds. The black list typically includes Akitas, American bulldogs, American Staffordshire terriers (also known as pit bulls), Chows, Doberman pinschers, German shepherds, and Rottweilers, but dog owners say insurers sometimes also shun boxers, collies, dalmatians, schnauzers, Siberian huskies, and other breeds not as commonly associated with aggression.
Commerce, which underwrites more homes in the state than any other insurer, considers about a dozen types of dogs ”unacceptable.”
Pet ownership, especially dogs, is in fact a thorny public-policy issue across most forms of affordable housing. HUD devotes a whole handbook chapter to pet policies, allowing private owners to limit pets and to impose additional security deposits or surcharges for those who keep them. Public housing authorities may promulgate policies that likewise restrict pets as to species, size, behavior, and surgery (declawing, spaying). In military housing, pets are permitted (’the garrison commander’s Great Dane’ is a well-recognized archetype), even as big dogs chew up furniture, wreak havoc on carpeting, and represent a liability risk:
Insurers say breed-specific policies are driven by high numbers of dog bites that result inexpensive insurance claims, including costly cosmetic surgeries for disfiguring scars. Dogs bite more than 4.7 million people each year, and about 800,000 of those who are bitten — half of them children — require medical attention, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
It’s not all fun and games.
This isn’t just a health issue, it’s an economic one, taking a bite out of insurers’ profits:
Bites accounted for about a quarter of all homeowner claims in 2003, costing insurers roughly $321 million, or about $16,600 per bite in 2002, as calculated by the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit trade group.
That’s about 19,300 compensable bites, or only 1 out of 40 of those needing medical attention, and only 1 out of 243 of all bites. Is the risk’s bark worse than its bite?
It is legal in most states for insurance companies to charge higher premiums or refuse to write or renew a policy based on a breed of dog. That can leave dog owners like Ellis scrambling for alternatives.
The subject seems to make insurers rabid:
”The whole issue of dog bites is an absolutely huge problem,” said Frank O’Brien, vice president of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a national trade association, which opposes the bill.
Small person, big problem
And makes owners seeking coverage sit up and beg:
Unable to find another company to insure her, she was forced to turn several years ago to the quasi-public Massachusetts FAIR plan, which provides coverage to homeowners who cannot secure insurance in the private market.
In other words, taxpayers pay, taking only the portfolio’s economic woofers:
Breed-specific guidelines vary by company and state, and many insurers are reluctant to disclose which breeds they frown on since revealing underwriting criteria could put them at a competitive disadvantage. Many dog owners believe insurers are also protective of the lists because they fear customers may not be forthright about dog ownership if they know they own a banned breed.
I worry about my sense of identity
Insurers are very coy about marking their territory:
”So while we’re not saying that every dog of that breed has vicious tendencies,” said Doug Hamilton, underwriting manager for the Andover Companies, the state’s second-largest home insurer, which includes Cambridge Mutual and Merrimack Mutual, ”we’re concerned about their breeding characteristics and history as a group.”
But dog owners say underwriting criteria are often based on stereotypes, unreliable data, and misinformation.
Dog owners are refusing to roll over and play dead:
”We understand that insurance companies want to reduce their risk, but we don’t feel that just focusing on breed is the best way to do that,” said Kara Holmquist, advocacy director for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who testified in support of the bill at a State House hearing earlier this month. The bill was filed by state representative Anne Gobi, a Spencer Democrat.
You mean someone’s looking out for us?
While some owners see the state as watchdog, insurers want legislators kept on a tight leash:
The American Insurance Association, a national trade group, opposes legislation that would dictate underwriting criteria because ”in a healthy marketplace, consumers can usually shop around and find someone who meets their needs,” said spokesman Michael Moran. ”Once you force companies to do things they don’t have an appetite to take a risk on . . . [there will] just be fewer insurers available who want to write the business.”
Owners of those breeds are tied of being in the doghouse:
Still, dog owners say, breed-specific policies can force homeowners to choose between beloved family pets and affordable insurance, and animal shelters say potential adopters are often unwilling to adopt certain breeds out of fear that they will be unable to obtain insurance.
”I do not deny that individual dogs may bite,” said Virginia Rowland, president of the Massachusetts Federation of Dog Clubs and Responsible Dog Owners, ”but to blame a whole breed for what a very, very few dogs have done is just totally unfair.”
And a doggone shame.
