Does Homeowners Insurance Cover Dog Bites in Utah? Limits and Breed Exclusions

Insurance guide · October 2026

When a pit bull bit me in Layton in 2020, the dog’s owner had homeowner’s insurance. It didn’t matter. The policy excluded his dog’s breed, so no insurance covered the bite. The claim fell on the owner personally, he filed bankruptcy, and I recovered nothing.

Utah law made him liable. His insurance policy decided whether that liability was worth anything. That is true of nearly every dog bite claim in this state, and it is why the first question in a dog bite case is not who was at fault. It is whose insurance covers this dog, for how much, and whether there is an exclusion buried in the policy.

Who pays for a dog bite in Utah

Utah holds a dog’s owner or keeper liable for the injuries it causes, whether or not anyone knew the dog was dangerous (Utah Code § 18-1-1). Fault can still be shared under Utah’s comparative fault statute, but the starting point is strict liability. Our article on what changed in Utah’s dog bite law in 2025 and 2026 covers the exceptions.

Liability is rarely what decides these cases. Money is. Few people can pay a five- or six-figure judgment themselves, so in practice a dog bite claim is a claim against an insurance policy:

• Homeowner’s insurance. The personal liability part of the policy covers the policyholder’s legal responsibility for injuries to other people, including injuries caused by their dog, whether the bite happens in the yard or at a park.
• Renter’s insurance. Tenants’ policies carry the same kind of liability coverage.
• Medical payments coverage. A small, no-fault part of most homeowner’s policies that pays a guest’s medical bills without anyone having to prove fault.
• Umbrella and business policies. An umbrella can sit on top of the homeowner’s policy. A business policy can apply when the bite happens at a business or while the dog is with a groomer, walker, or kennel.

Landlords are usually not on that list. In 2025 the Utah Supreme Court held that a landlord was not liable for a tenant’s dog in Tesch v. Bonneville. Our page on tenant dog bites explains who is liable when the dog belongs to a renter.

What insurers actually pay

Every spring the Insurance Information Institute and State Farm publish national figures for dog-related liability claims under homeowner’s policies. For 2025, insurers handled 28,450 claims worth an estimated $1.86 billion. The average claim was $65,450, down 5.5 percent from 2024 but up 97 percent since 2016, a rise the Institute attributes to medical costs and the size of settlements, judgments, and jury awards.

Two cautions before treating that number as a benchmark. The count covers all dog-related injuries, not only bites; people knocked down by a dog are in it too. And an average blends thousands of modest claims with a few catastrophic ones, so it says little about any single case. Our Utah Dog Bite Report shows how wide the range runs in real Utah files.

Common policy limits

Limits come from the policy’s declarations page; exclusions and sublimits are usually in endorsements attached to it. Both matter.

Above the limit, the owner is personally responsible. On paper that means a serious injury can still be paid in full. In practice, collecting from an individual is slow and uncertain, which is why the limit is often the real ceiling on a case.

How breed exclusions work

Insurers handle breeds they consider high-risk in a few different ways:

• Refuse to write the policy if a restricted breed lives in the home.
• Charge more for the same coverage.
• Exclude the dog by endorsement, so the policy covers everything except injuries that dog causes. That is what happened in my case.
• Cap animal claims with a sublimit well below the policy’s main limit.
• Exclude all animal liability, for every pet in the home.

The breeds that appear most often on restricted lists are pit bulls and Staffordshire terriers, Rottweilers, Doberman pinschers, German shepherds, Akitas, chow chows, Alaskan malamutes, Siberian huskies, Great Danes, Presa Canarios, and wolf hybrids. Mixes and dogs that resemble a listed breed are often swept in too. One carrier’s Utah homeowner’s underwriting guide is blunt: pit bulls, Rottweilers, and dogs with a bite history “will not be accepted under any circumstances.”

Breed is not the only trigger. A dog with a prior bite can be excluded, or get the whole policy nonrenewed, whatever its breed, and some large carriers say they look at the individual dog’s history rather than its breed. That cuts against injured people in an uncomfortable way: the dog with a record of biting is the dog most likely to have been excluded already. The dog that bit me had bitten three people before me.

Utah bans breed rules for cities, not insurers

Utah stopped cities from regulating dogs by breed in 2014. Since January 1, 2015, Utah Code § 18-2-101 has provided that a municipality “may not adopt or enforce a breed-specific rule, regulation, policy, or ordinance regarding dogs,” and that any such rule is void. Before that, Utah cities wrote their own breed rules, some of them about insurance. In 2005, Springville raised the liability coverage it required of pit bull owners from $20,000 to $50,000.

That statute governs cities and towns. It says nothing about insurance companies, and Utah has not adopted the kind of law that a handful of states, including New York and Pennsylvania, use to limit breed-based insurance decisions. So in Utah, your city cannot single out your dog’s breed. Your insurer can.

When the policy excludes the dog

An exclusion does not erase the owner’s liability. It moves it from the insurance company to the owner personally. A judgment against an individual is only worth what can be collected, and a dog bite debt can usually be wiped out in bankruptcy. The Dog Bite Report explains why the bankruptcy exception for “willful and malicious” injury rarely helps.

Before concluding there is no coverage, look for other policies that might respond:

• The keeper’s policy. Utah’s statute reaches anyone who “keeps” a dog, not just its owner. If a friend, relative, or roommate was in charge of the dog, their own homeowner’s or renter’s policy may cover them.
• An umbrella policy, if it was not written to follow the same exclusion.
• A business’s policy, if the bite happened at a business, or while the dog was with a groomer, walker, sitter, or kennel.
• A separate canine liability policy, which some owners of excluded breeds buy precisely because their homeowner’s policy will not cover the dog.

And read the exclusion itself. An exclusion that names a breed raises a factual question about whether this dog is that breed. Many exclusions reach mixes and look-alikes, but the exact wording still matters, and it can only be judged with the full policy in hand.

How to find out whether there is coverage

• Ask the owner for the insurance company and policy number, and ask them to report the bite to their insurer.
• Report the bite to animal control. The report identifies the dog and its owner and creates a dated record.
• Expect resistance on limits. Many insurers will not disclose policy limits before a lawsuit is filed.
• Once a lawsuit is filed, Utah’s initial disclosure rule requires each party to produce “a copy of any agreement under which any person may be liable to satisfy part or all of a judgment” (Utah R. Civ. P. 26(a)(1)(D)). That means the policy. A defendant serves those disclosures within 42 days after filing its first answer.

The timing trap in Utah’s dog bite arbitration

Utah has a special arbitration track for dog attack cases (Utah Code § 18-1-4). Only the injured person can elect it, and only within 14 days after the complaint is answered. The award is capped at $50,000, punitive damages are off the table, and electing it gives up any judgment against the owner’s personal assets, limiting recovery to the available insurance.

Put the two deadlines side by side. The election closes 14 days after the answer. The owner’s disclosure of the policy isn’t due until 42 days after the answer. Unless the coverage was pinned down before the lawsuit, the decision to arbitrate, and to give up any claim against the owner personally, gets made before anyone has seen the policy. Against an excluded dog, that election may be worth very little.

If you own a dog

• Tell your insurer about the dog and answer breed questions accurately. A misstated application can give the insurer a reason to contest coverage when you need it most.
• Read your declarations page and endorsements for an animal exclusion or sublimit.
• Consider higher liability limits, and an umbrella that does not exclude dogs.
• If your dog is excluded, a separate canine liability policy can fill the gap.

The coverage you carry is what pays if your dog ever hurts someone. Without it, the bill comes to you.

Bitten or injured by a dog in Utah? A Utah dog bite lawyer at West Injury Law will review your case for free, starting with whose insurance covers the dog. There are no attorney fees unless we win.