Last updated on November 30th, 2021 at 12:55 pm

The police and courts already have various powers to take criminal action if a dog bites, but what about the victim who may be left with serious injuries or permanent scarring?.  Well, they may be entitled to claim compensation and so will need to make a civil claim for the damage against the dog’s owner or keeper.

The real difficulty comes when the dog that has caused the injury isn’t insured, and whilst this is my general observation only, it appears to me that those people who keep the more dangerous breeds (those which tend to bite) often don’t bother to insure them against third party risks.

In our opinion, all dogs should be insured so that the owner has the peace of mind that the dog is protected in case of injury – but also so that the public are protected too.

In the world of grazing animals such as horses and cattle, insurance appears to be almost always taken out.  Of course these animals are very expensive in the first place, so owners do tend to protect their inherent financial interest in the animal.  However, when it comes to dogs, owners are often not as conscientious and many still neglect to insure their animals.

Of course a dog has a mind of its own, but many owners/keepers don’t realise that if the dog attacks another animal or a person then they could potentially face criminal proceedings through the police and CPS for failing to keep an animal under control, and civil court proceedings for compensation for the damage caused.

When we are pursuing a case against an owner/keeper we often encounter difficulty in establishing whether insurance is in place to cover the damage caused by the animal, and where it isn’t there are course the practical problems, such as where does the money come from to pay the compensation when the claim is successful?  This can cause real financial difficulty for the defendant, which could have been avoided by taking out a relatively cheap  third party liability policy on the dog.  A few pounds a month covers the risk of being responsible for an injury caused to a third party.  This might be a direct bite or a road traffic accident caused by a dog running off whilst being walking, or escaping from its home.  A few pounds a month more would cover injury to the animal itself too.

From our own perspective, having dealt with animal claims for several years, there seems to be no good reason at all not to have the protection of animal insurance in place, both for the sake of the owner and the public.