Top 7 dangerous dog breeds
By Christine G. Barlow and Eric Gilkey
At JLA, we love dogs as much as you do.
Unfortunately, dogs and insurance have been at odds for years.
As a result of some extremely bad claims situations, some carriers maintain lists of restricted breeds — dogs the carriers would not place homeowners’ coverage on due to perceived aggressive tendencies.
But any dog can bite and cause injury, so most state legislation focuses on a definition of what makes a dog dangerous and statutory provisions for how that dog is to be maintained.
By defining certain actions as dangerous or vicious, states have made it possible for any dog to be listed as dangerous purely because of its behavior, and not because of its breed. This allows a sweet Doberman some leeway and puts the blame where it belongs: on the specific actions of a dog.
While some insurers maintain banned breed lists, others, such as State Farm and Allstate, have changed their approach and have followed the states’ lead by not inquiring about dog breeds during the underwriting process. Instead, they only inquire about behavioral qualities such as past incidents of aggressive tendencies or behavior.
Not every insurer has made the switch, however. Many rely on a list of dog breeds from a report authored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) entitled, “Breeds of Dogs Involved in Fatal Human Attacks in the United States between 1979 and 1998.”
What follows are the breeds that the CDC has listed as most dangerous based on fatal human attack statistics, and therefore could be particularly prone to insurance claims.
Pit Bull
Rottweiler
German Shepherd
Husky
Malamute
Doberman Pinscher
Chow Chow
When combined, Rottweiler and Pit Bull breeds were involved in approximately 60% of human deaths in the CDC's study.
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