Your Family Pet & Your Homeowners Policy

Homeowners insurance is designed to protect all members of your family against personal liabilities, and sometimes you might wonder how it extends to your pets. Although your home insurance won’t pay for costs like your pet’s veterinary bills or cover the cost of replacing your favorite couch cushion if your dog chews it up, it does offer important liability protection. In many cases, the liability coverage within your policy can be extended to cover pet bite liabilities, and this is coverage you might not know you need until it’s too late. Here’s how it works. 

Understanding Pet Bite Liability Insurance 

Everyone loves their family pet. To you, they are probably cute, friendly and never hostile. That’s probably the case 99% of the time. However, there is still that 1% of the time where your pet is an animal, no matter how tame it might be. 

A friend or neighbor might not realize that they are about to startle a dog when they simply reach to pet it. However, the dog is equally innocent if they react angrily and bite the person in question. This is an animal, and the animal can’t be blamed for its actions. Rather, it is the dog’s owner who is likely to take the blame for this loss, and who might have to compensate the injured party.