Insurance broker Doug Akiyoshi once walked into a backyard in Seattle to take some pictures of a potential client’s house.

“Suddenly, this dog appeared out of nowhere,” he said. “It was a Lab, and it was in attack mode. And I climbed that wall as fast as you can imagine.”

Akiyoshi, based in Mercer Island, Wash., said he later phoned the owners and told them: “You know, you’ve got a problem here. Does that dog have a biting habit?”

“And they said, ‘Well, that was one reason why we got dropped by our other carrier,’” Akiyoshi recounted.

He informed them that the dog was why he, too, would be declining coverage.
Homeowners often learn the hard way that standard insurance policies don’t cover natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. But less dramatic — and less well-known — problems can put even a standard policy out of reach.

Dog bites, for example, account for one-third of homeowners’ liability claims, costing insurers $387 million in 2008. As a result, agencies have all but blacklisted homeowners with pit bulls, Rottweilers or other dogs included on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of deadly breeds. But a dog of any breed with a history of biting — such as the dog belonging to Akiyoshi’s would-be clients — is likely to send insurers running.