If you have a dog, you may be surprised to find that your home insurance bill is more expensive than if you don’t have a dog. That may sound like something that is opposite to what you would expect, but check your policy.

The reason that dogs (especially some breeds of dogs and larger dogs) will push up the price of your home insurance is because when they bite someone and that person sues you for their medical bills, the pain and suffering payment that they want, the repayment of their missed work, their psychological distress bills and so on, you are going to turn the bill into your home owners insurance company and they are going to end up paying after you pay the deductible.

You may think that getting a small dog isn’t going to make your home insurance premiums go up, but in all likelihood, if your home owners insurance agent finds out that you have a dog, your premium is going to go up. You probably don’t know that you are supposed to tell your home insurance agent if you do get any pets, because they can change the way that your house in insured.

A lot of cheap home insurance companies won’t cover you if you have certain breeds of dogs. These are the breeds of dogs that people consider aggressive, like pit bulls, chows and other dogs that have short tempers. Sure, a lot of these dogs are super friendly and wouldn’t ever attack a person, but how is the home insurance agent supposed to know that? Even if you have a German Shepard or any other large dog, you may have to pay more for your premiums.

This extra money that you pay towards your home owners insurance is meant to pay for any accidents that happen with your pet. For example, if your dog bites the mailman, the smallest the medical bill is going to be is $500, and that’s if you are lucky. Getting a couple of stitches and paying for the mailman to have the rest of the day off while someone else covers his route is going to be expensive. That’s the smallest amount that you are going to get away with, because if your mailman decides to sue you for damages or if the wound is more than a couple of stitches, the bill could get into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars pretty easily.

When deciding on whether you want a cheap home insurance policy or a trusted company, you need to know how your four legged friend will be insured. You need insurance if something is going to happen. Even if your dog has had proper training, most home insurance companies will require an extra premium if they are going to cover your pet. Making sure that you have the proper home insurance in place, and remembering when you add an addition to your family is going to help if something happens where your pet causes damages to property or accidentally bites someone. Home insurance is going to keep everyone in your family, including your pets safe and happy.