Dog-Bite Costs Surge to $479 Million as Claims Increase

U.S. insurers’ costs tied to dog bites surged last year to a record as the price of the average claim jumped 12 percent on higher medical fees, legal settlements and jury awards.

Bites cost the industry $478.9 million last year, compared with $412.6 million in 2010, the Insurance Information Institute said in a statement today on its website. The average claim increased to $29,396.

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A demonstration on how to avoid dog bites. Photographer: Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo

“The most dangerous dogs are those that fall victim to human shortcomings such as poor training, irresponsible ownership and breeding practices that foster viciousness,” according to the statement.

The attacks account for more than one-third of all liability payouts from home insurers, an industry led by policyholder-owned State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. and Allstate Corp. (ALL) A lawsuit can cost more than $100,000 in legal fees and lost wages, even if the homeowner wins, according to the institute, which says dog owners can limit confrontations by spaying or neutering the animals and keeping them from infants.

“A dog’s tendency to bite depends on such factors as heredity, obedience training, socialization, health and the victim’s behavior,” Bloomington, Illinois-based State Farm said in a separate statement this week. “There are good dogs and bad dogs within every breed, just as there can be responsible and irresponsible owners of each breed.”

Postal Service

There were 16,292 claims last year, down from 2003, the first year the institute’s data were listed in the statement. The average cost per claim increased 53 percent since 2003.

Dog owners aren’t responsible in most states for injuries to trespassers, according to the statement. National Dog Bite Prevention week begins this weekend.

The U.S. Postal Service said 5,577 of its employees were attacked last year in more than 1,400 cities. Los Angeles had the most attacks, 83, followed by San Diego and Houston, the service said in a statement today.

Letter carriers fearing for their safety because of an unrestrained animal can stop delivery and require pet owners to pick up mail at a post office, according to the statement.

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OSHA has kicked off a national outreach initiative to educate workers and their employers about the hazards of working outdoors in the heat and steps needed to prevent heat-related illnesses. OSHA’s 2012 Heat Illness Prevention Campaign builds on last year’s successful summer campaign as well as CAL/OSHA’s successful initiative in 2010. Nationwide last summer, OSHA participated in 500 national and local conferences, training sessions, and media events, and distributed more than 180,000 heat hazard materials in English and Spanish.

For outdoor workers, ‘water, rest and shade’ are three words that can make the difference between life and death,” Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said. “If employers take reasonable precautions, and look out for their workers, we can beat the heat.”

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Medscape (5/15) reports, “Results of a new study of medical malpractice claims offer a mix of reassurance and sobering reality.” The study found that “55.2% of medical malpractice claims that required some defense cost led to litigation,” though “most are ultimately decided in the physician’s favor.” Yet it also found that “litigated claims often take months or years to be resolved.” The study was based on “data from all 50 US states for the years 2002 through 2005″ including “10,056 malpractice claims that necessitated some defense costs.”

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The New York Times (5/14, O’Connor) “Well” blog reports that research “in the journal Pediatrics highlight several under-recognized causes of injury in young children: bottles, pacifiers and sippy cups, which cause thousands of injuries to the mouth and teeth every year, often when toddlers topple over while holding them in their mouths.”

The Washington Post (5/14, Huget) “The Checkup” blog reports that researchers found that over a 20-year period, “more than 45,000 young children had sustained injuries” linked to baby items such as bottles, sippy cups, and pacifiers that were “serious enough to warrant emergency-room treatment.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (5/14, Kalson) reports, “Some 83 percent of the wounds were cuts or bruises to the mouth and face or dental injuries after children fell while using the products. Two-thirds of the injuries occurred among one-year-olds, who tend to be unsteady on their feet and prone to tumbles.”

The CNN (5/14) “The Chart” blog reports, “One in five (19.9%) injured children had a pacifier in their mouth, and in 14.3% of the cases, a sippy cup was involved.”

MedPage Today (5/14, Baron-Faust) points out, “This study is the first to use a nationally representative sample to examine injuries associated with these products, the authors stated.”

Button batteries may be life-threatening if swallowed by children. USA Today (5/14, Healy) reports that button batteries “accounted for 84% of the battery-related hospital emergency department visits by children from 1990 to 2009, and once ingested, they can be life-threatening,” according to a study in Pediatrics. “The increase in emergency department visits coincides with the introduction of the 3-volt 20-millimeter lithium battery into the marketplace,” which “is more powerful and can cause tissue damage much more quickly.”

The Wall Street Journal (5/14, Mathews, Subscription Publication) explains that if the batter sticks in the esophagus it can produce burns and even perforations. It also points out that the study made use of the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.

Food-borne disease declined from 1998 to 2010.

FOX News (5/11, Rowan) reports, “The rate of food-borne illness in the United States dropped by nearly a quarter since the late 1990s,” according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, finding “that the overall incidence of six common food-borne germs was 23 percent lower in 2010 than in the years between 1996 and 1998.” But “the researchers noted that other germs that commonly cause food-borne illness, such as norovirus, were not included in the data.”

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The Wall Street Journal (5/7, Welsh) reports that Chrysler announced that it is recalling some 2011 and 2012 Chrysler 300s and Dodge Chargers. The recall is due to an electrical issue that could cause antilock-brake and stability-control system malfunctions. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration document, Chrysler says the problem can be traced to the overheating of the power distribution center. The recall, which effects up to 119,072 vehicles, is expected to begin this month.

The AP (5/6) reported that to correct the problem, Chrysler will relocate and exchange a fuse on the recalled vehicles. The company said it “is not aware of any crashes, injuries or fires related to the overheating.”

The Detroit News (5/6, Shepardson) added Chrysler “initially thought the problem was unique to the heavy use of police vehicles after the problem first surfaced in a Michigan State Police training vehicle, and 34 other complaints were reported. Chrysler initially recalled about 10,000 Dodge Chargers used by police — though it also fixed another problem on the police vehicles — replacing the headlamp jumper wire harnesses. After a review of field reports, Chrysler found 43 reports that may relate to same issue in civilian vehicles.”

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The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times (5/3) reported, “In a wrongful termination lawsuit against Fannie Mae, US District Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled Monday that the mortgage giant should be considered a private company and not a government actor. Caroline Herron, who had served as a Fannie Mae vice president until 2007 and then returned in 2009 as a consultant, sued Fannie Mae in US District Court for the District of Columbia in 2010, claiming she was wrongfully fired for reporting concerns she had about how the company was carrying out US Department of Treasury mortgage foreclosure prevention programs.” Judge Collyer “wrote that the appointment of FHFA as Fannie Mae’s conservator didn’t ‘transform Fannie Mae into a public agency.’” As a result of the ruling, most of Herron’s claims against Fannie can proceed.

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ABC World News (4/30, story 6, 2:00, Sawyer) reported in its “Consumer Watchdog” feature that there are 120 chemicals “in care products, cream, shampoos, used every day by women, most of them untested and a lot by men as well.” ABC (Avila) added, “This average woman applies twelve beauty products to her body every day, 120 chemicals. For men, it’s six cosmetics and 80 chemicals, and few…think much about what’s in them.” Avila lists and describes some of the chemicals: “formaldehyde, a known carcinogen; dioxin in some shampoo; lead on your lips; parabens, possibly linked to cancer, in deodorant; even mercury, in skin-lightening creams; toluene, known to cause headaches in nail polish; and diethyl phthalate, linked to allergies, hormone disruption and dermatitis in perfume.” Because “Europe has banned 1,200 such chemicals, and the United States, only ten…critics say cosmetic makers mix a riskier brew of the same product for domestic use.”

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The Boston Globe (4/24, Abelson) reported, “Nearly half of Massachusetts residents have had their personal information lost or stolen as a result of about 1,800 data breaches over the past four years, according to a new report from the state’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation.” The report also found that “most of the incidents reported to the state involved electronic information that was vulnerable because it was not properly encrypted.” Overall, “the financial services industry reported the greatest number of breaches” 955 incidents exposing data on 901,156 people, while “the health care industry…had 214 breaches” that “exposed more people – about 983,746.”

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Bloomberg News (4/21, Feeley) reported that Pfizer “must pay at least $4 million in damages to a woman who developed breast cancer after taking the company’s Prempro menopause drug, a jury in Connecticut ruled. Jurors in federal court in New Haven ruled that Pfizer’s Wyeth unit is liable for causing Margaret Fraser’s cancer and that Prempro is an ‘unreasonably dangerous product,’ Greg Bubalo, one of Fraser’s attorneys, said yesterday. The panel also found that Wyeth should pay punitive damages over its handling of the drug.” Bloomberg also noted that Wyeth and Upjohn have lost 11 of 20 Prempro verdicts since 2006, although some awards were later reduced or voided.

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The Washington Post (4/19) editorializes on “why President Obama has declined to issue an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation,” arguing that “there is no principled reason for refusing to extend such workplace protections to millions of Americans.” The Post notes that “such an order would have a beneficial and immediate impact on a large swath of the US workforce: Federal contractors employ some 26 million people.” Citing the president’s “pivotal role in the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” as well as his refusal “to defend the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act,” the Post concludes that Obama “should again seize the mantle of leadership by issuing an executive order that prohibits the federal government from doing business with contractors that fail to guarantee basic fairness to their LGBT employees.”

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