From: Terri_Watson@cs.cmu.edu (Elfling)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Subject: Re: Adding to Pet Peeves
Date: 7 Jan 93 20:06:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: ELF.ELF.93Jan7150617
Organization: Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science

OK, sorry it took so long to follow up on this but chasing these
people down is time consuming.  I thought Mike's question was a good
one so I called random insurance company X (which in this case is
Allstate).  After getting re-routed up the chain of command & then to
the underwriters, here's what I learned.

I talked with Andre Howell (sp?) who is a public relations kind of
person.  He returned my call & what he knew w/o having a chance to
research it was:
   - stats are collected by some group (he doesn't know who yet) from
police reports
   - incidence of bites by breed types (yes, there is still a problem
of identification -- we didn't discuss that)
   - they have analyzed the data for geographical trends, but to date
there aren't any to be seen
   - they also have "experts" that describe a breed's general
temperment & this is factored in.

I asked if they "normalize" the number of bites for a particular breed
in some fashion, so that they don't mis-represent a popular breed as
viscous.  (We had a short discussion on statistics here & he agrees
that it is a good idea, but he doesn't know if they do it.  He plans
to ask when he gets more info.)

At this point, he is taking a couple of days to try to get more
information (how the numbers are used, what the name of the org that
they come from is, who the "experts" are, etc.) and then he'll call me
again.

I'll let you know what I find out.

Remember, the insurance companies have to use statistics, even though
an individual breed may not be at fault.  Take the case of a "fast"
car.  While I could buy one & always drive it safely & at the posted
speed limit, statistically, that's not what happens.  Thus higher
rates.  While it may not be the case that a particular BREED is really
a higher risk (just as it's not the car's fault), it may be that the
kind of owner that BUYS a dog of a breed that has gotten an
"agressive" labeling in the public eye, is.  Thus the statistics help
the insurance company find the high risk OWNERS, by looking at the dog
breed.  I'm certain that if we could find a better predictor than
that, they would be ecstatic.

Until then let's only sell our puppies to responsible owners & try to
educate the rest of the world about how to raise a well behaved dog.
Maybe we can recommend that insurance companies give a break to owners
whose dog(s) has (have) a CD -- kinda like giving a break to drivers
that attended driving lessons.  That kind of promotion ahould probably
be handled at the national level.

Another interesting data point is to know if houses without dogs are
more likely to be burgularized.  Unfortunately, to calculate this
accurately you would need to know the percent of houses in an area
that had dogs, as well as the percent that were bugerlarized that
did/did not.  The first number would be difficult to get I imagine.

Oh well, as always it seems like public education is the key.

.Terri
(companion to Amethyst Nausicaa O'Chancery <Tika> : Belgian Sheepdog)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs