Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does any one insure their animals? How would you go about doing so?
Jim Royal

Be careful who you call and ask about this-- if your animals are in your home -- some homeowners ins. companies will drop you for having a 'dangerous' animal.
I won't post who I'm with, but my agent has no problem with reptiles-- I don't know if its just my agent letting me slide with having snakes-- or if it is the company.

We were able to raise our 'personal property' coverage-- in the case of a total loss-- I'll get enough $ to replace my belongings and animals.
We also have 'purchase price value' NOT 'depriciated value' -- meaning that 1,000$ couch you bought a year ago, thats now worth 300$ -- you'll get 1,000-- not 300....

I would start by calling anonymously to some of the ins. agents and asking if they cover reptiles--- I think mostly what you'll find is that unless your running a store- and the coverage is for a store address-- you won't find much.

good luck and post what you find.

Beth
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

I worked in the insurance industry for 5 years and can agree with the previous statement. Most 'common' insurance companies will NOT cover reptiles (or most live animals for that matter) and the majority of them will drop all of your coverage if they know you have snakes/reptiles. Similar if they find out you have a pit bull. (Believe me, I looked into it as I had both snakes and a pit at that time.) You can usually look at the contact for your existing policy to see if they can provide coverage.

There are very few insurance companies that will actually cover you collection and the main one that I know of that will is Lloyds of London. I cannot remember for sure if Chubb, Travelers or Firemans Fund would but those are other possible options. Most of these insurance companies are expensive and when I worked in the high-end side of insurance the people we covered were spending 10K or more a year just on insurance. I have a contract somewhere for Lloyds of London coverage for exotics so if you are interested, shoot me an email and I'll see if I can forward it to you.
Good luck!
-April
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'There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."' -Rainshadow

thanks for your help?
i already know my homeowners wont cover its in provisions of contract under harboring dangerous animals.
Jim Royal

This is a repost of some info I had posted on this forum about 3 or 4 years ago... premiums always go up, so expect the cost to be higher now-a-days:
"For example… to insure a collection 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. A claim for loss against the policy would also increase the premium dramatically.

Again, please note, the example above is just that… an example. They evaluate 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!

Enjoy!
-April"
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'There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."' -Rainshadow