Certain breeds of dogs apparently present a higher risk of damage and injury than other breeds of dogs. The risky breeds are either excluded from coverage for liability insurance claims against their owners, or the risky breeds draw much higher premiums even when insurance coverage is extended to their owners. See Jane Gottlieb, Love Your Dog, But Beware of Your Homeowner’s Insurance, NEW YORK TIMES online June 17, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/realestate/insurance-dog-breed-exclusions.html?searchResultPosition=3.
I have learned anecdotally that landlords may not or should not ask their prospective tenants who have guide dogs or companion dogs what breed such a dog for a given tenant might be.
There can be no doubt that health insurance carriers are aware of how risks like these are treated by liability insurance carriers. There can also be no doubt that health insurance carriers are looking closely at the risks of COVID-19, coronavirus infections. The risks famously include serious illness, long COVID, and death.
Further, some “pandemic insurance” carriers in Taiwan have actually written insurance policies that cover people who contract the coronavirus. At one time in the not too distant past, Taiwan was relatively free of COVID claims, but now so now. Those same insurance carriers have reportedly paid out so many claims now that at least some of them are facing a year or more without profits because they are paying so many COVID claims. See Joyu Wang, Insurers in Taiwan Pay the Price for Misjudging Covid Risks WALL STREET JOURNAL June 18, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/insurers-in-taiwan-pay-the-price-for-misjudging-covid-risks-11655546402 (Beware: May be behind a Wall Street Journal paywall).
Similarly, carriers who used to offer COVID insurance coverage in China, Japan, and Thailand have either stopped selling the insurance completely or raised premiums for it. Moreover, some carriers in Thailand have reportedly “ceased operations after being overwhelmed by claims over Covid products,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
There can be no doubt that health insurance carriers in the United States are aware of the claims experience of insurance carriers in Taiwan, China, Japan, and Thailand that offered coronavirus coverage. With a sufficient level of underwriting documentation and research as a basis for excluding coverage, can health insurance coverage for COVID-19 in the U.S. continue to survive (forgive the wording) coronavirus health insurance coverage claims in the U.S.?
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