[gundorana]

I'm going to tell you what happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

I work in the claims office of an insurance company, so we deal with people complaining that they didn't get paid enough, they want more, we're ripping them off, blah, blah, blah... whatever.

This guy calls a couple of weeks ago raising cane because he got a letter from us stating that we were reimbursing the person that hit his dog their deductible (it's call subrogation against us, and when they paid for their vehicle repairs, and the guilty party was found... our insured, John Q. Public, we sent them their deductible back because they paid it out of pocket on their vehicle repairs.

This guy is chewing me out because this person, Billy Bob, hit his dog and now, we (his insurance company, not him personally), is reimbursing Billy Bob their deductible.. he thought that was crazy. Why should we pay their deductible back when they hit his "pure bred dog and they should be paying him for reimbursement on the cost of his dog".

I have to be polite, and can't really say a lot, here's how most of the conversation went..... "Sir, was your dog running loose?".... yes..... "Then you are responsible for the damages done to his vehicle"... why?..... "because your dog is your responsibility and whatever your dog gets into, you are responsible for paying for the damages"...... but they hit my pure bred dog and they should pay me back for the dog, he was only a 20 pound puppy, how much damage could he do?..... "Sir, it's not a question of how much damage he did, the point is, you let your dog run loose, he got off your property and was hit by a car. Legally, you are responsible for any property damage to their vehicle, and/or injuries caused by them hitting your dog. Did you ever have your dog tied up?"..... no, he runs loose, but I chain my older dog (guess he thought that made up for the other one running loose! )..... "well, you are responsible for what your dog gets into, even if that means the line of travel of a 3000 lb vehicle".... He gets ticked off and practically hangs up on me. The guy could not understand why we were paying this person for hitting his dog, he thought they should be paying him for the cost of his dog. I finally told him if I had a pure bred dog, I would never allow it to run loose for fear of it getting hurt and not only losing my dog, but also losing the cost of buying that dog. I told him I have 6 dogs, all mutts, basically, and I installed a $3000.00 fence to prevent them from getting off my property and I live on 25 acres in the country.... He never got it, and I hung up with my blood pressure boiling.