Question about insurance and snakes

Originally Posted by liquidleaf

Another question. If snakes were housed in an outbuilding (as in, detached building, not part of the house), would homeowner's insurance also cancel if they found out in that case as well? Or will just having snakes on your property period, no matter if it's in the house or not get you cancelled as well?

Lauren That is a good question,I'm not really sure of how they work it ( I'm a hot head) when I was told that I had 30 days to vacate them I said F.U I'll find another place....I didn't go into the finer points of it but I would suggest that you talk to an insurance company "Not Yours" and see what the fine lines are....

Griz also answered me on another forum. Apparently if snakes are anywhere on your home property, your insurance will get dropped and you can't get coverage via business insurance on your home property for snake breeding.

Guess my 'reptile room' will now be a 'storage room' so to speak. Thanks for sharing all your info, I was shocked to say the least to hear this. Snakes are such common pets now!

I don't have a ton of input for this thread, but my insurance agent knows I have $50+k in reptiles in my home. I had inquired on getting them covered under a business addendum to my home owners, but she said the can't insure live animals. However she was completely willing to insure my Fiance's large gun collection. Go figure.

I had talked to an old friend about the whole pit bull & home owners insurance a couple years back and she said that in most states it's illegal to drop someones homeowners insurance because of dogs. However, that doesn't stop insurance companies from threatening those who don't know the law. I guess she had come up against the problem (she owned a small group of breeder pits) and she did the research prior to notifying her insurance company.

That is all just a bunch of BullSh*t in my opinion. I was OK, it didn't piss me off until someone said that they can't even be on the property that your house is on. That is absolutely ridiculous. I know cornsnakes don't count right?? They are in no way exotic. What about bearded dragons, exotic yes, but dangerous only to crickets?

I am guessing this insurance rule falls along the same lines as the pet bans? 8'+ snakes, I hope?

Even then its ridiculous, I would be much more scared of a pitbull barking at me than a large boid. I guess I could see the relevance of a 12-14'+ or venomous rule though. I don't understand though how animals effect home insurance though (please realize I don't have any, I live with my parents), does not it cover your home incase of destruction? If thats the case, then are they worried that the snake will destroy your home?

I'm a little confused. I have a renter's policy and my agent (and it's on the paperwork) knows I have snakes, geckos, spiders, scorpions, roaches and mealworms.

The animals themselves are not insured, but the rest of the place is.

Are we just talking about regular homeowners insurance, or are we talking about insurance for the herps?

I am not very well versed on this either, but I believe a big part of the problem some insurance companies have is the heating needed to keep some of these animals. While I believe the UTH methods I use are very safe, there are always those who won't do it properly.....and then there's the question of the "heat lamps". All "fire hazards" that we are willingly putting in our homes.

And yes, it's perhaps illegal to drop someone's homeowners insurance in some places because of Pit bulls, or any dog they think looks vicious, but it doesn't stop them from raising their rates to an unaffordable price with a "dangerous animal" clause or some such thing. A friend of mine had her homeowners insurance premium raised by a large amount because they have a BORDER COLLIE that smiles......and the insurance agent was scared of it. No growling or barking or any actual show of aggression as any person with any common sense would recognize, but since it shows its teeth, it MUST be dangerous.

From what I was told, insurance companies DO NOT CARE what kind of snake it is, since a snake is not a puppy or kitty or gerbil, it's considered an exotic animal.

The person who told me about this yesterday (his family runs an insurance agency) said, when I asked him if it was due to fire hazard, said he didn't think so - simply because a snake is an exotic pet. Do parrots fall into the category of "exotic"? What about aquariums? Other "exotic pets" that would make more sense for insurance companies to drop people for would be oh.. say... like a bengal tiger, or a gorilla, or even VENOMOUS reptiles. Bengal tigers don't have heating needs, but could harm a person. But surely a corn snake isn't the same.... but they do look at it that way. Snake = exotic. They do not care about species. Yes, burms and retics could do massive bodily harm, and from what Griz said on a different forum, the main reason for dropping snake-owners is due to risk of injury, but apparently a snake is a snake is a snake to them.

I'm sure that not ALL insurance companies do this (like Emmalee's renter's insurance), but it seems that most of them have dropped customers if they find out about snakes in the house. The friend of mine who first told me about this said that one insurance company contacted their agency with a whole load of cancellations recently. Many were due to dogs - including a chihuahua, because the homeowners "did not disclose they had the animals". In those cases, this company didn't even care what KIND of dog it was, just the fact that the homeowner had not told them about it. Three were due to 'snakes'. Apparently, however they found out, they did not even bother asking the insured people what kind of snake it was.

This whole thing has me so upset. Does anyone else out there have homeowners insurance, where the agency or insuring company IS aware of snakes being present? I hope there are more "good" companies out there, and hope this isn't another bandwagon trend.

Also - I don't think it matters if your insurance agent knows about the reptiles.

If your agent were to inform the insurance company (this is in reference to Triple Moon's post) about the snakes, or if you had to file a claim and a person straight from the insurance company (ie an adjustor) saw your snakes, you might get dropped anyway. My friend told me that if no one ever 'saw' my collection in my home, I probably wouldn't have a problem.

Insurance agents just sell coverage. They don't really care about liability to the insurance company (unless they ONLY sell insurance from one company, but most agents sell from a variety). Your agent wants to keep you as a happy customer and so he/she may never have told your insuring company about your collection. Since you're on good terms, might want to ask them if they've ever encountered this same situation. Hopefully this is not as widespread as I worry it is....

Seems like this may be a primarily New York State problem....

http://www.birdsnways.com/wisdom/ww65eii.htm ... from this article, dated 2002, it seems the problem is primarily in New York state. The article details how bird owners can be dropped, and how as of 2002, insurance companies started instating new questions and terms for opening new policies. Sometimes I really REALLY dislike where I live.

Originally Posted by liquidleaf

If your agent were to inform the insurance company (this is in reference to Triple Moon's post) about the snakes, or if you had to file a claim and a person straight from the insurance company (ie an adjustor) saw your snakes, you might get dropped anyway. My friend told me that if no one ever 'saw' my collection in my home, I probably wouldn't have a problem.

Well, I'm pretty sure Nationwide knows I have them...I believe she had to double check with the company when I presented her with my question. Sue didn't ask how many I had, but I did give her an estimate dollar figure. While she was utterly surprised, she made absolutely no mention of them being the cause of my insurance being dropped. She would have warned me if it had been an issue.

Originally Posted by liquidleaf

Insurance agents just sell coverage. They don't really care about liability to the insurance company (unless they ONLY sell insurance from one company, but most agents sell from a variety). Your agent wants to keep you as a happy customer and so he/she may never have told your insuring company about your collection. Since you're on good terms, might want to ask them if they've ever encountered this same situation. Hopefully this is not as widespread as I worry it is....

My insurance rep only works with one insurance company, she runs a mid-size insurance business in Shippensburg. My entire family has been using the same insurance company (most of them to her actually) for years. Also, Sue knows if she wanted to make me really happy she'd insure my reptiles. She also has never been asked the question before. In fact, I got an "are you serious?" from her.