• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Home owner's insurance for home reptile business?'s

H

hill4803

New member
Joined
Jan 9, 2004
Messages
609
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
56
Location
Georgia
My major question is which companies will sell home owner's insurance to someone who has a home based reptile business? My home ins. is pretty cheap (under $500 /yr), how much of an increase could I expect if I included the home based business? I will probably go LLC by the end of the year and will certainly have to have the insurance. Anyone have any tips?
 
My only input I can add is this: It is my understanding that basic homeowner's insurance does NOT cover living organisms. I know of a local guy who used to propagate $1000's of coral fragments, and when a fire destroyed 1/2 his home along with all of his high-tech aquariums and corals, the insurance company wouldn't cover the loss of the *live* things.

When my mom built a new home on a 40 acre plot, there was an existing old farmhouse that she turned into her exotic bird-breeding facility. (exotic birds to an insurance company = anything that's not poultry). Most insurance companies don't like to combine residences with businesses, but when she found one that would cover the entire property, the business part of the contract had to have a few specific clauses built in (along with $-values) for the actual living creatures. I'm not 100% sure what insurance company she had to go with, but I know it was a farmer-friendly one... Medina Mutal sounds familiar.

For what it's worth...
 
Thanks Paul. I have not mentioned nor was I asked if I had any pets when I bought my homeowner's policy. I have heard of people being denied or cancelled because they owned a snake! I can understand jacking rates for people who own dangerous animals that are known to cause death and destruction but if the owner can prove they are properly contained I don't see why insurance can't cover eople willing to pay. Hell, people with kids don't get rate jacked and they are the #1 reason people get sued by neighbors! I actually got that tidbit from my agent!
 
Heck Yeah, and can you THINK of anything more destructive than kids? And it's still against the law to keep them in cages.....

Sorry I don't have anything really helpful to add. :) But I'm also interested in this issue, and hoping others will post.
 
What kind of reptiles do you have? It might depend on whether they're poisonous or not in terms of the insurance. But I don't have exact answers for you, sorry man! It might help you to read some of the articles on http://www.businessinsurance.org - pretty informative site that can tell you about insurance options for all different types of businesses. Hope that helps!
 
If you want to have your business insured p roperly you need to disclose ALL of your income from these animals. This would mean taking a 20-30% hit on your income to get everything covered under you insurance.

Also, there are companies that will insure ANYTHING! You just have to call around and find one willing to take the risk. Then you have to decide whether or not the price tag is worth it.

Its a pretty personal decision.
 
hill4803 said:
Thanks Paul. I have not mentioned nor was I asked if I had any pets when I bought my homeowner's policy. I have heard of people being denied or cancelled because they owned a snake! I can understand jacking rates for people who own dangerous animals that are known to cause death and destruction but if the owner can prove they are properly contained I don't see why insurance can't cover eople willing to pay. Hell, people with kids don't get rate jacked and they are the #1 reason people get sued by neighbors! I actually got that tidbit from my agent!
Click to expand...

Snakes, however they are contained, are deemed 'wild animals' and owners can be strictly liable for harm caused.


http://www.suite101.com/content/strict-liability-law-a117277
 
I am a property & casualty insurance agent. I own an insurance agency in Texas. I also breed chameleons. I can tell you with 100% certainty. A standard home insurance policy in the state of Texas does not cover exotic pets. It also would not pay for any loss of income from a fire or other peril that destroyed said animals. You may be able to get the insurance company to pay for cages and other supplies that were destroyed. But if you are operating a breeding or wholsale business from the residence they may decide to decline all portions of that loss from the claim. Based on the fact that its a commercial enterprise.
If you want to be insured properly you need to take a detailed inventory of all the animals and supplies and have a detailed price listing the costs of all the items being insured. Take that to your agent and he/she can get you quotes on commercial property coverage. Then you would need to decide if you want to purchse general liability for your business. So that you would be covered if someone was somehow hurt by you while you were in the act of conducting business. Coverage for animal bites is outrageously expensive so you would probably exclude that or the company my MAKE YOU EXCLUDE it in order for them to accept the risk. The costs associated with commercial liability coverage are variable depending on the amt of coverage needed (ie 25,000 per occurence up to say 1 mill per occurrence). Also depends on what types of animals are going to be sold and displayed. If the animals will be transported to other facilities for expos and sales etc... All those things factor into a properly rated insurance policy. Which is basically a contract between you and the insurance company detailing what is covered and what isnt.
 
Killer Chams said:
I am a property & casualty insurance agent. I own an insurance agency in Texas. I also breed chameleons. I can tell you with 100% certainty. A standard home insurance policy in the state of Texas does not cover exotic pets. It also would not pay for any loss of income from a fire or other peril that destroyed said animals. You may be able to get the insurance company to pay for cages and other supplies that were destroyed. But if you are operating a breeding or wholsale business from the residence they may decide to decline all portions of that loss from the claim. Based on the fact that its a commercial enterprise.
If you want to be insured properly you need to take a detailed inventory of all the animals and supplies and have a detailed price listing the costs of all the items being insured. Take that to your agent and he/she can get you quotes on commercial property coverage. Then you would need to decide if you want to purchse general liability for your business. So that you would be covered if someone was somehow hurt by you while you were in the act of conducting business. Coverage for animal bites is outrageously expensive so you would probably exclude that or the company my MAKE YOU EXCLUDE it in order for them to accept the risk. The costs associated with commercial liability coverage are variable depending on the amt of coverage needed (ie 25,000 per occurence up to say 1 mill per occurrence). Also depends on what types of animals are going to be sold and displayed. If the animals will be transported to other facilities for expos and sales etc... All those things factor into a properly rated insurance policy. Which is basically a contract between you and the insurance company detailing what is covered and what isnt.
Click to expand...

Greg,

That's why I'm a life and health guy LOL. New Jersey is the WORST state for P&C stuff. I wouldn't even get involved with it here.
 
Some good answers here!

I also used to sell insurance. I know I've posted this before, luckily I saved the text in case it needed to be reposted, see below. What you may need to do is consider livestock insurance. The company that provided this quote (back in the early 2000s) was Lloyds of London underwritten by Crowe Livestock Underwriting Limited, quoted through a brokerage I used to work for.

**
I had always heard Lloyds of London was the only avenue available. I finally was able to get an example of costs, so I thought I would share!

For example… to insure a collection of ball pythons in the amount of $300,000 for Mortality and Theft coverage, with an annual aggregate deductible of $10,000, the yearly premium would be approximately $11,500. Of course lower deductibles increase the annual premium cost and higher deductibles lower it. A 1% deductible (in this example, that would be a $30,000 deductible) the yearly premium drops to approximately $5,000.

Again, please note, the example above is just that… an example. Lloyds evaluates each collection on a case by case basis. The application for the insurance is very thorough, asking for the type, age/hatch date, breeder, markings, etc. It also asks for detailed information about their security, caging and health. All of those factors as well as some additional considerations are what determine the actual price. I just thought it would be nice to provide an example of a quote. Obviously this is something made for people with large collections and in general is not cost effective for someone with only a few snakes.
I just thought this was interesting!

***

edit to add - and be careful with your normal homeowners insruance, besides being excluded, if they find out you have 'dangerous/wild animals' they may drop your coverage all together.
 
Thanks for the heads up on Lloyds. I am looking for land now to build a new home and a large building for my collection will also be built seperately. So I will be looking for coverage in the coming months and this will give me another option when I start getting quotes.
 
I wouldn't even tell my insurance company I was running a reptile business. I've heard of insurance companies dropping people for having larger snakes. They won't insure the animals anyway, so why bother telling them.
 
brd7666 said:
I wouldn't even tell my insurance company I was running a reptile business. I've heard of insurance companies dropping people for having larger snakes. They won't insure the animals anyway, so why bother telling them.
Click to expand...

I just recently switched home owners insurance to State Farm because the rates with Nationwide are atrocious and they went through a list of "exotic" animals (including snakes) that were on their prohibited list. I played dumb because it was ridiculous and what's it to them? Rabbits were on the list? Why would the deny someone insurance because they have a rabbit? :shrug01:
 
TripleMoonsExotic said:
Rabbits were on the list? Why would the deny someone insurance because they have a rabbit? :shrug01:
Click to expand...

Rabbits are an increased property damage risk since they are known to cause damage to wiring and other parts of the household like chewing on drywall (plus there's liability if the rabbit bites someone). Usually pets are just excluded under the policy but again, if the company is specificaly made aware that they exist in the household, the ins. co. may deny coverage completely, especially for anything considered exotic (rodents, reptiles, fish, bird).

oh the joy of insurance!
 
AbsoluteApril said:
Rabbits are an increased property damage risk since they are known to cause damage to wiring and other parts of the household like chewing on drywall (plus there's liability if the rabbit bites someone). Usually pets are just excluded under the policy but again, if the company is specificaly made aware that they exist in the household, the ins. co. may deny coverage completely, especially for anything considered exotic (rodents, reptiles, fish, bird).

oh the joy of insurance!
Click to expand...

Anything has the potential to bite...My son went through a biting phase...It's just silly...My rabbits are caged outside with no access to the interior of my property, so that excuse it out the window.
 
I don't know many people that haven't had a rodent get loose at one point or another even with the best of racks. Of course we caught them right away because we have a cat that pointed them out very quickly - Thanks Callie! But left unfound, they could do some serious damage to a house's wiring.

Years ago, when I had two snakes and buying food wasn't an issue, I picked up a teddy bear hamster that was on sale and made the dumb mistake of not going straight home. The hamster of course ate through the thin little tote box, then proceeded to eat through the floor carpet of my brand new car, and then started eating through wires under the midseat console. I had to take the whole middle console out completely to get to him and then solder the wires back together. I ENJOYED feeding that rodent off to my snake soooo much. Muuhahahahaha LOL. So yeah they can cause damage. :iagree:
 
brd7666 said:
I wouldn't even tell my insurance company I was running a reptile business. I've heard of insurance companies dropping people for having larger snakes. They won't insure the animals anyway, so why bother telling them.
Click to expand...

If you want your equipment covered and the building covered by insurance you have to tell them what the building is used for. If you want general liability coverage for your company again you have to tell the company what business activities you perform. If you have both needs commercial property and commercial liability. You can combine both policies into one in most instances and thats called a commercial business owners policy or BOP for short. Thats what most of us should have on our business. Not many do, but if your ever sued for anything having that coverage can save your ass.
 
I'll stick to good ole' Smith and Wesson Insurance. They seem to have the best rates($.25 a claim) and are always at my side! LOL All joking aside, this thread is making me call the insurance agent and have a chat today. My curiousity has been peeked and Im curious as to how things are here in Ohio on this. Thanks! Jeff
 
Back
Top