Insurance for goose work?

[silhouettestable]

As some of you may recall, I started a couple of my dogs into training on sheep and am interested in getting into doing goose control. I was wondering though, those of you that do goose work, do you carry commercial liability insurance, personal, or are you covered in some other way (i.e. by whoever you're working for?) What kind of premiums might I expect to pay for something like this? Feel free to PM me if you're willing to share info that you'd rather not post publicly. Thanks.

[DTrain]

I have never been able to find liability insurance for my goose work although I got an email recently from an American company offering it. From what I understand there is no such thing as full coverage for the dogs. I carry personal insurance and I am covered by the clients I work for. I have been told that liability insurance for the dogs if available would be in the area of 10K to 20K per year. There is no track record for this work although there has never been a recorded case of a goose dog causing a single problem. As you are probably aware coverage and the courts in Canada have a very different view of liability and until I can find a Canadian company with a history in this area I will continue as I am. My big concern is for the dogs. Although there has never been a recorded case as I mentioned there have been numerous situations where goose dogs have been attacked by other dogs and even people including Toronto. I also have a concern for theft coverage on the dogs but have not been able to find coverage. I was once quoted however 15K per year for very limited medical coverage on the dogs that offered a generous $250 payment if a dog was killed or lost.

[sweet_ceana]

I also have a concern for theft coverage on the dogs but have not been able to find coverage.

I work in insurance and this *can be done* because the dogs are used for business purposes. You may need to ask about a personal Articles Policy on the dogs. They cannot be written as pets, and as much as it bothers me, to be insured they must be looked upon as "equipment," by the insurance company. This type of insurance is hard to find. If you can find a commercial insurance broker in your area they may know of a company that can help with coverage for the dogs and for the liability insurance for the business.

[silhouettestable]

I have commercial liability for my business of teaching riding lessons. I'm going to talk to them about it and see. Any opinions on what would be considered a "reasonable" premium to pay for commercial liability for goose work? What would you want/expect your coverage to include/exclude?

[sweet_ceana]

I would look for a policy to include a higher liability (just because people "can" sue even when they are at fault for any animals reaction to anything stupid the person may do) and I would see if you could find a policy that would consider the animals business equipment. If you want to keep the premium down I would choose the highest deductible that you could afford in the case of an emergency.

 

I wish I had an idea of what the premium might look like, but there are so many variables I could not even begin to guess. If there are others in your area that do goose work, you can check and see what company they went through, or you could all band together to see if you could find a group rate. Insurance is the law of large numbers so the more people that are doing the same thing as you that are insured by the same company will spread the risk and lessen the premiums.

[DTrain]

There is very much less risk involved working goose dogs than there in in giving riding lessons. In fact since there has never been a single recorded case of a goose dog or herding dog causing harm in any way to people or property by comparison your premiums should be very low. I would expect that no insurance company would be able to come up with a track record. I have been quoted rates for dog bite insurance which was not only completely out of line in terms of premium but an incredibly bad example to base a record on in this case. I would expect my coverage to include dog attacks of course but you will be lumped in with all other dogs and that does not apply. I have looked in to coverage for the dogs as attacks on the dogs by other dogs and people would be far more common and in fact a number of cases have been reported but unless I was willing to pay a very high premium for liability my dogs were considered to be worth nothing. The second highest risk factor is people attacking the dogs and you and again there have been numerous cases of this as well. I have never had a problem in a golf course situation and the course has always made a disclaimer for the dogs but I have often thought the the biggest risk is stupid golfers with clubs and carts. I have been told to consider the dogs as business equipment but again the insurance company did not want to cover anything happening to the dogs and I can not see paying for one way street coverage when all the risk is on the opposite side of the street. However, as ceana points out people can sue although Canadian courts are quite different even if they were at fault.