I’ve grown up pretty much my entire life having dogs as pets.  Christine and I adopted a mutt named “Barney” from Lollypop Farm about 5 years ago.  I enjoy hauling my dog around with me when I can in the SUV (weather permitting, of course).  I’ll take him to the dog park or we’ll bring him on a hike with us, I never really gave much thought about what would happen if we were in a car accident, until I started to sell insurance and my perspective on everything changed. 

I have a grate that keeps him in the back of the vehicle, so he’s not jumping over the seat or licking my ear/face when I’m driving.  I figured this would help keep him in the back of the vehicle in case we were ever in an accident and help protect him and us.  Even though the grate will keep him from propelling into the back of us or even worse out of the vehicle, undoubtedly he would still sustain some injuries depending on the severity of an accident. 

Now I know that if I’m hurt in an accident or any of my passengers, my auto insurance policy with pay for my medical bills.  But what about Barney’s medical bills?  Two of the insurance companies that I represent will cover the medical bills for your dog/cat, Erie Insurance and Progressive Insurance.

Erie Insurance will pay up to $500 per animal for reasonable veterinary costs incurred due to an injury in a covered auto accident.  If the injury results in death, Erie will pay up to $500 to replace the dog/cat, which includes the first wellness visit and the cost to spay or neuter the dog/cat.  There is no deductible applied to this pet coverage.  Anyone that has an Erie Insurance Auto Policy automatically has this coverage built into their policy at no additional cost. 

Progressive provides up to $1,000 for veterinary bills for your animal that is injured in a covered auto accident.  Progressive will pay you up to $1,000 to replace your animal, even if you opt not to replace your animal.  Now in order for Progressive’s pet coverage to apply to your policy, at-least one of the cars on your policy has to have collision coverage.  If you have collision coverage on at-least one vehicle, the pet coverage is automatically included on your policy and applies to all vehicles on the policy even if they don’t have collision coverage. 

For all of the dog/cat lovers out there, these are great coverages to protect your pet. 

With all of the snow that we had this past weekend and are projected to get for the rest of the week, how could we not talk about snowmobiles.  I’m sure some people may have even given or received a snowmobile as a gift this past holiday season. 

I know my neighbor received a snowmobile for Christmas, I could tell by all of the tracks in his front yard.  Good thing he received a trailer to haul his snowmobile because I don’t think he’ll get his riding fix on our city sized lot.  So that brings up the questions of insurance and registration, if he is going to take his snow mobile off of his property what does he need to do?

NYS says that if you plan to ride your snowmobile on your own private property or someone elses that you have express permission to ride on you are not required to register your snowmobile with the DMV.  But if you are planning to ride on public trails you do need to register your snow mobile with the DMV and pay a $100 fee.  Now if you are a Snowmobile Club Member your registration fee is only $45.  You can find a local club to join at http://www.snowmobilingusa.com/Snowmobile_Clubs.htm. 

Surprisingly, the DMV doesn’t require snowmobilers to carry insurance.  This opens riders up to a huge risk because if you are injured by another rider most likely they won’t have insurance to cover your medical bills and you won’t have any insurance to cover them yourself.  Snowmobile insurance policies are similar to motorcycle policies in the fact that they don’t automoatically provide any medical coverage to the rider, it needs to be selected and you pay an additional premium for it. 

Now you can insure your snowmobile relatively inexpensively by adding them to your homeowners or auto insurance and these will provide you with limited liability coverage in case you injure someone else.  You can even insure your sled for any physical damage caused by an accident.  Adding your snowmobile to your auto or homeowners insurance is better than having no insurance at all, but we recommend purchasing a separate snowmobile insurance policy.  It is a little more expense, but the coverage it provides you is better because you can select medical coverage to help pay for your hospital bills if you are injured while riding.