Can Snakes/Reptiles Be Insured?

One of my biggest fears is investing the amount of money i'm investing in animals for future breeding and end up having them die during a power outage or for any host of other reasons. I just keep envisioning finally reaching the stage of having multiple clutches (potentially thousands of dollars worth) of eggs sitting in the incubator and having the power go out during the winter or something while i'm out of town some weekend and killing all of my animals. Or... What if someone were to break in my house and steal all of them?

Does anyone know if there is any sort of insurance that can be purchased for reptile breeders? I would think that my homeowner's insurance would cover theft, but someone once told me that insurance companies won't even insure you if they find out that you keep/breed reptiles in your home. Does anyone know how true that is?

Unfortunately, I'm no help here. But great questions. I'm curious about the answers...

I've posed this same question, and the answer I got was "talk to your insurance agent".

My concern with talking to any place you have an existing policy with would be the possibility that they revoke your coverage due to some kind of liability issue. There was someone on here, I am trying to remember who, that had big issues when the insurance found out about the snakes.

I used to work in insurance and posted this a few places years and years ago... this info might help you out (copy/pasted below). Also as Jordan says, usually not a good idea to bring it up to your normal home insurance agent as they can cancel your coverage or write in an exclusion, usually exotics (and pets in general) are not covered. Read your declaration's page carefully, it'll probably have the answers in there you need.

Copy/paste from old post:
What you may need to do is consider livestock insurance. The company that provided this quote (back in the early 2000s) was Lloyds of London underwritten by Crowe Livestock Underwriting Limited, quoted through a brokerage I used to work for.

I had always heard Lloyds of London was the only avenue available. I finally was able to get an example of costs, so I thought I would share!

For example… to insure a collection of ball pythons 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.

Again, please note, the example above is just that… an example. Lloyds evaluates 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!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

My concern with talking to any place you have an existing policy with would be the possibility that they revoke your coverage due to some kind of liability issue. There was someone on here, I am trying to remember who, that had big issues when the insurance found out about the snakes.

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That is exactly what i'm afraid of, too... I definitely won't be contacting my homeowner insurance company about it! There is no doubt that insurance companies have some sort of spin they put on it, so they can rape people out of even more money (if they'll even insure you)! My guess is they probably view it as a fire hazard due to heating/lighting? I'm sure another angle they probably use is that they could get loose and injure someone? If that is the case, dogs are a much greater liability by far!

It's one thing if someone is just keeping a snake or two as pets, but more serious keepers/breeders, who are investing tons of money into animals as a business or in my case, a passionate hobby/sideline business should be able to protect their investments. I wrote a post in the "General Herp" thread a bit ago as well, asking for advice on backup generators. If I can find a reasonably priced solution for power outages that would be insurance enough for me, I guess. I would at least sleep a little better at night, because power outages happen fairly often in my area. Most of the time the power either comes right back on or within maybe 30 minutes or so. But, there has been a few times that it has went out for quite a few hours and even a couple of days one time... :mad:

Thanks, April! That is very useful information! I wouldn't need anywhere near that amount of coverage, but it definitely doesn't sound like it will be cheap either way if rates were that high 17 years ago... Aaargh!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AbsoluteApril

I used to work in insurance and posted this a few places years and years ago... this info might help you out (copy/pasted below). Also as Jordan says, usually not a good idea to bring it up to your normal home insurance agent as they can cancel your coverage or write in an exclusion, usually exotics (and pets in general) are not covered. Read your declaration's page carefully, it'll probably have the answers in there you need.

Copy/paste from old post:
What you may need to do is consider livestock insurance. The company that provided this quote (back in the early 2000s) was Lloyds of London underwritten by Crowe Livestock Underwriting Limited, quoted through a brokerage I used to work for.

I had always heard Lloyds of London was the only avenue available. I finally was able to get an example of costs, so I thought I would share!

For example… to insure a collection of ball pythons 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.

Again, please note, the example above is just that… an example. Lloyds evaluates 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!

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Hello Everyone,
I am an insurance agent and I can confirm all of the info listed here is correct, with the exception that your declarations page will not list out any of the exclusions listed within your Homeowners policy. There is a separate section within the policy that covers all the exclusions.
It can be rather expensive and these policies are typically written for Livestock, Cattle, Dogs(i.e. Police Dog, Service Dog), and Exotic Zoo animals. More of your high dollar individual animals. Great info!!!!