Insurance on your collection?

[Vengeance]

What insurance company do you use to insure your pet collection? I don't mean health insurance to cover vet bills, I mean in the event, god forbid, your house burned down or coverage for accidental death. Example would be if the thermostat on your house screwed up and things got way to hot and it killed your collection. Is there any company that would insure animals in cases such as this?

I've got a deposit down on 1.1 100% Het Albino Ball pythons, and I was thinking I'm making an investment of not only a fair sum of money but quite a bit of time. They are hatchlings so it will be at least 2 - 3 years before I would be able to even begin to see any return on investment and that is a very optimistic time frame. So I was wondering, what do the big breeders do with their very expensive collection, do you have insurance to cover the What if's?

[mykee]

If you do a search on "insurance" on this site, you'll find a few excellent threads on exactly this topic.

[bistrobob85]

Excellent question, i have an ETB and im planning to get a few others in years to come, and they're pretty expensive snakes... I feel a little concerned about that too!

[thegeckoteam]

Would home owners insurance cover that? Just wondering.

[mykee]

If you do a search on "insurance" on this site, you'll find a few excellent threads on exactly this topic.

[DragnDrop]

These should get you a started:
http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25099
http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35995

What it all boils down to is ... unless your collection is very valuable, it might not be worth the agony to even think of mentioning to your insurance company that you own reptiles.

[crimsonking]

I have a friend in GA. that had his homeowners' insurance cancelled when he casually mentioned to his agent that he had a collection of snakes. I don't know about other places, but here in FL if your ins. gets cancelled, it's VERY difficult/expenxive to get another policy.
What a rip-off!!!
:Mark

[thegeckoteam]

Well, I guess I won't be mentioning anything to my insurance agent. LOL

[Stockwell]

Exactly...Be careful you don't end up incriminating yourself...
I made the mistake of simply asking my insurance company if I could get insurance on my collection and they pulled both my residence and vehicle policy, and told me they were no longer interested in any of my business....period
The simple fact that I let them know I was a snake breeder, scared the beejeebers out of them.
In the eyes of some insurance companies, herpers are weirdo fringe group minorities that represent above average risk. By even mentioning you keep herps, especially constrictors you might get a rude awakening and find you're no longer insurable at all.
Herpers with many years of snake keeping under their belt, or with commericial herp breeding businesses might also have a hard time getting life insurance. This all depends on what you keep and whether they believe you when you say you're not working with hots and don't have a basement full of Nile crocs.
I suspect there might be a feeling of "where there is smoke there is fire. "
Of course simply avoiding this topic also puts you in breach of contract, so it would be terrible to pay premiums for years only for your loved ones to find the policy wont pay out in the event of a tragedy

[mykee]

It's a slippery slope. My own personal collection is fairly valuable, but I won't even tell my house insurance broker/company about them. You just need to take all the precautions that you can to ensure you're being as safe as possible IMO.

[vanderkm]

Apart from the issue of insurance companies denying any insurance to people who keep herps, in most cases with insurance of any livestock, the premiums that are required to maintain a policy for replacement value are so high that it is not worth it. Life insurance on livestock is high risk and there are not many buyers to spread that risk among. You will find that if you invested what you would have to pay out in premiums over 4-5 years of the policy, you would have enough to buy any replacements.

mary v.

[Lisa]

i mentioned that we had some corn snakes (stupid me opened my big mouth), insurance agent was like corn snakes? what are those? i told him they were like garter snakes, he said he had to call an adjustor and find out what to do, when he got back to me he was like, don't worry, they're not even mentionable. so i didn't bother mentioning the rest of our collection. I'm with rbc btw.

[Jayson]

My insurance company had me up my liability to 2 million and then told me i am not aloud to take them from my home to publicly display nor was i aloud to breed BOA CONSTRICTORS. LOL they did not mention and other species. It all ended up costing me an extra $2 per month.
I guess it could have been worse.

Jason

[Vengeance]

What company was that Jason?

[Vengeance]

Just got go a little bit further on this subjest. Insurance companies are really starting to get to me. I went through 7 companies and only one would insure my home with the snakes inside. One company actually had the audactiy to say they wouldn't insure me because if the snake escaped it could wrap araound a babies neck and kill the baby..................... are people really that ignorant?

Anyway, I know allot of you would suggest that I just don't tell them, my problem with that is that I would hate for something to happen to my home and then when it comes time for the insurance company to pay up they say my policy is void because I kept reptiles. So for me it's just to have peace of mind upfront that in the event something happened I wouldn't get scrwed.

Anyway that's my rant for the day.

[Nicki]

Well, I work in insurance, so I just called up my underwriter and asked her what the deal was. I told her I had a few thousand dollars in snakes, etc, and was hoping to get a few animals in the $2000 range to add. She was a bit wary about the idea of snakes, but I told her they were all small, none that could hurt people. (They are.) I don't know what would happen if I had retics! :)

Anyways, the policy does not exclude pets, except in the case of loss due to theft. And so she says we'd be considering my animals pets. But I did expressly write on my application for insurance which animals I had, and wrote right on there that they are non-venomous and all small sized.

So... don't know if this is helpful or not.

I would always prefer to look for a company that will provide coverage, knowing I have the animals, though. Because I'd hate to have a claim denied because I withheld material information.

Nicole

[Vengeance]

I gave them the same information, All I have are Ball pythons and King snakes, I was thinking about a BCI but if this is the hassle I'm going to have to go through I might reconsider.

But every insurance company I phoned I told them they won't grow over 6 feet, most likely will be 4 feet as adults, they are caged, they are non venomous, and are docile. Still got the same crap, that it was too much of a risk. I'm not even against paying a premium more costly then usual to keep them but I can't even get that far. I asked if they could send a adjuster to examine my setup to make sure they are secure, I'm trying to make every concession for these F**king people and not one of them will even consider me just because I have a snake. The ignorance and prejudice is really annoying. I have a dog, a beagle, and my dog has a greater chance of hurting someone then any of my snakes will ever have just because of the fact the dog will be allowed to free roam in my backyard and will be out in public, on a leash but still. There is a better chance of my dog biting someone then there is of my snakes hurting anyone, yet they can't see that. It's extremely frustrating.