There is talk now in New Jersey about the kind of pet you choose impacting your home insurance coverage.  As you may or may not know, New Jersey suffers from huge insurance issues.  Recently, companies have released lists of breeds of dog which, according to them, have the potential to cause your home insurance costs to increase.  If you own one of these pets, then you have to get rid of the pet in order to have your rate lower or to get insurance at all.
I'm sure you can imagine who makes u p this list and i"m not looking to have a "good dog, bad dog" debate.  The issue is, do they have the right to decide what pet you can have?  Sure they ahve the right, but is it too much control?

\There was legislation in 2006:
An Assembly panel yesterday released legislation sponsored by Assemblymen Neil M. Cohen, Vincent Prieto, and Jeff Van Drew that would prohibit property and casualty insurers in New Jersey from altering a homeowner's insurance policy based on the type or specific breed of dog kept on the insured property.


But it's being discussed again.  I guess cuz no one is gettnig enough $ fromt he residents of new jersey.

There is talk now in New Jersey about the kind of pet you choose impacting your home insurance coverage. 


"There is talk now in Everywhere about the kind of car you choose impacting your auto insurance coverage."

Sorry, this really is a non-story.  16-year-olds with Ferraris tend to be worse auto insurance risks than 40-year-olds with Camrys.  Smokers tend to be worse health insurance risks than non-smokers.  People without smoke alarms tend to be worse health insurance risks than people with smoke alarms.

I hate insurance companies on general principle.  Insurance companies make money because they expect to pay less on claims than they take in on premiums, so all you're doing is buying a put option against your own life.  To the extent possible, it usually makes financial sense to self-insure -- insurance companies make money on these bets, and you can too.  If your car's only worth $5000, and the insurance company wants $1000/year to insure it against collision damage, the insurance company is telling you that they expect you to total it approximately once every five years.  If you're in the habit of wrapping cars around telephone poles every year or two, then by all means, get that collision insurance!  But if they charge you $1000/year for collision insurance on a $5000 car and you haven't had an accident in ten years, collision insurance is probably a bad bet, because you could invest that $1000/year in premiums in nearly-risk-free investments like T-bills for ten years, deliberately wrapped your car around a telephone pole, cashed in those CDs, and ended up with two replacement cars, not just one.  Insurance companies don't do anything that you can't do for yourself, but for lack of capital.  They're just making bets and hoping that they're better at assessing the risk better than you are.

You insure against the catastrophes you couldn't afford to fix with your own savings.  That means you stop insuring against $25 window chips and $15 flu shots, and raise the deductibles to the point that you're reserving the insurance for the things you can't fix with your own money.  Like the one-in-a-million shot that you'll be test-driving a $200K Lamborghini (or $20K new car) when you run into a minivan full of uninsured nuns (or some guy on a $1000 bicycle), and the fumes from the resulting carbon fiber fire give you a $500K case of cancer 20 years down the road (and you break your nose when the airbag goes off).

Back on topic -- that means that yes, maybe it is worth the extra $20/year, or $1000/lifetime, against the 0.1% (one-in-1000) chance that Brutus the Pit-Bull will eat a $1M-lawsuit worth of cute human baby meat, because it really is a better bet than the $1/year, $50/lifetime, odds that Winkums the French Poodle will do anything more expensive than amuse the same baby.

In dog years, the odds of Brutus I, Brutus II, ... Brutus VII eating $1M worth of baby meat are much slimmer than 1-in-1000, the insurance company makes money on your $20/year premiums over your 50-year dog-owning lifetime -- but since you can't pay $1M in the event that you actually draw life's unluckiest of lottery tickets, the $20/year might be a reasonable price to pay to pass that risk to someone else.  In that sense, the insurance company -- weaselly as they may be -- is providing a valuable service for the money.

Humans suck at risk assessment.  Insurance companies make massive profits off of this... most of the time.  You pays your money, you choose your car, your level of food/alcohol intake, and yes, your choice of pet, and you takes your chances. 

New Jersey is the worst state.  Highest taxes in the country.  Most corrupt politicians in the country.  The only good thing is we do not have to pump our own gas and we have relative cheap gas as well.

i think i heard that the numbers were last year: 30% left the state, 18% moved in...

whichever the number, it's not looking good.

There is talk now in New Jersey about the kind of pet you choose impacting your home insurance coverage.  As you may or may not know, New Jersey suffers from huge insurance issues.  Recently, companies have released lists of breeds of dog which, according to them, have the potential to cause your home insurance costs to increase.  If you own one of these pets, then you have to get rid of the pet in order to have your rate lower or to get insurance at all.
I'm sure you can imagine who makes u p this list and i"m not looking to have a "good dog, bad dog" debate.  The issue is, do they have the right to decide what pet you can have?  Sure they ahve the right, but is it too much control?

\There was legislation in 2006:
An Assembly panel yesterday released legislation sponsored by Assemblymen Neil M. Cohen, Vincent Prieto, and Jeff Van Drew that would prohibit property and casualty insurers in New Jersey from altering a homeowner's insurance policy based on the type or specific breed of dog kept on the insured property.


But it's being discussed again.   I guess cuz no one is gettnig enough $ fromt he residents of new jersey.


If they can profile me by age on auto insurance, then surely they can profile homeowners for the kind of pet they have.

Besides, they're not choosing your pet for you, they're just encouraging you to not have certain types of pets.  If you have the ones on the list, then you just have to pay more.  The choice is still the homeowner's.

that's right. i heard it discussed on a call in show and people agreed that it was one more thing that would keep people moving out of the state.

Um, I would think the taxes and pollution would have a far greater bearing on deciding whether or not to move out of NJ.

Probably the worst thing about living in NJ is that its citizens get the most shafted in federal spending.  For every dollar NJ citizens put into the system, they only get 67 cents back.  NJ would actually come out ahead financially if they became their own country.

Um, I would think the taxes and pollution would have a far greater bearing on deciding whether or not to move out of NJ.

Probably the worst thing about living in NJ is that its citizens get the most shafted in federal spending.  For every dollar NJ citizens put into the system, they only get 67 cents back.  NJ would actually come out ahead financially if they became their own country.


it's unreal.
you're right.!