CHAKO goes head to head with Insurance professionals....
Today, CHAKO volunteer and German Shepherd Dog owner Jackie Marshall and I spoke to a packed room of insurance professionals at the Sacramento Hilton about a particularly controversial topic -- Canine Profiling. Members of the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter Society (CPCU Society - CPCU) spent lunch with us discussing breed blacklists and insurer risks when covering homeowners with dogs. Specifically, we discussed the ethical, financial, and societal issues mingled with breed blacklists.
In a recent study conducted by the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy (NCPPSP) and published in the July issue of the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science (JAAWS), researchers went into 12 selected animal shelters in the United States for one year to find out why owners relinquish pets. They discovered that the top reasons owners give up their pets are (1) they're moving and cannot take their pets with them, and (2) their landlord refuses to allow pets.
Both of these reasons are related to insurance policy blacklists on certain breeds of dogs. Many insurance companies refuse to cover owners that have certain breeds of dogs, including Allstate and Allied. Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, German Shepherd Dogs, Akitas, Huskies, Dobermans, and Chow Chows are the dogs most often making the insurance blacklist, but some companies also refuse to cover Boxers, Dalmations, Great Danes.
State Farm, however, has no breed discrimination policies except in States that have declared a particular breed vicious. For example, a California Homeowner who owns a Pit Bull can get a policy with State Farm if their dog has no bite history. However, if that homeowner were to move to a state like Ohio that declared Pit Bulls vicious, he or she would be unable to get insurance with State Farm. (Note: A Court recently punched holes part of Ohio's "Pit Bull" law).
We spoke with insurance companies to show them why breed blacklists aren't the best policy and conveyed our own views on what makes a dog owner a good risk. For example, some insurance companies give incentives or make exceptions to their breed blacklists for homeowners who have dogs with Canine Good Citizen certification. Specifically, we said that, by focusing on owners rather than breeds, insurance companies can reduce their risks globally for all their insured homeowners that own dogs.
We also handed out parts of the infamous CDC study on Dog Bite Related Fatalities (DBRF). We explained why this study is statistically invalid (something the authors actually admit) and also pointed out that the authors of this study recommended against breed discrimination. Some of the reasons the CDC study is statistically invalid are as follows:
1) The CDC study never defines its source data not defined. Specifically, the authors provide no definition of "Pit Bull" type dog. "Pit Bull type dog" likely includes up to 11 different breeds and mixes of those breeds improperly identified as purebred dogs (i.e., American Bulldog is often identified as a purebred Pit Bull, and a Mastiff/Patterdale Terrier cross could easily be categorized as a purebred Pit Bull).
2) With Pit Bull type likely encompassing at least 10 or 11 different dog breeds, the numbers represented in that category will be inflated. Essentially, the CDC authors lumped multiple categories into one. Comparing 11 breeds of dogs to 1 breed of dog in other categories certainly artificially inflated the numbers (note, despite this, Pit Bull type dogs did NOT account for 11 times the number of bites).
3) The CDC study made no correlation of DBRF to actual population of dog breeds. Utilizing AKC registration statistics is not representative of actual numbers because the AKC does not even recognize the American Pit Bull Terrier and American Bulldog (and many other breeds likely categorized as Pit Bull type). Licensing data is also unreliable because the vast majority of dog owners do not license their dogs. In fact, Carl Friedman, Director of Animal Control for San Francisco, has estimated that no more than 10% of San Francisco dog owners license their animals.
4) All the DBRF statistics originate from news reports, and some breed attacks are more likely to be given prominent news coverage than others. In addition, breed identification is generally questionable in these reports. For example, a fatal attack on an elderly Detroit woman made news originally as a Pit Bull attack. Later, the media reported the dog to be a Bull Mastiff.
5) CDC study admits, on its face, that it is not a statistically valid study.
6) Each breed in a mixed breed dog counted, which leads to a couple of problems. (a) identifying mixes is difficult, and even experts disagree (CDC study admits this in the text), and (b) leads to artificial inflation of numbers because potentially there would be more bites represented than there are dogs.
We also discussed a recent News 10 story about Ed Nelson, a Sacramento man who owns a German Shepherd service dog. Ed recently found himself denied homeowner's insurance because of the breed of dog he owns.
Our presentation went well, and many of the attendees asked pointed questions. Several people came up to us afterward to thank us for presenting and offer their sentiments on breed blacklists.