Fatal dog attacks in the US

As Americans have purchased more pet insurance policies, fatal dog attacks have increased, a correlation that reads like a cautionary tale about the limits of actuarial protection. The coefficient is 0.878 across eighteen years, during which both metrics rose with the steady confidence of an industry and a problem growing in lockstep. One imagines the insurance companies knew something the rest of us did not, which is, of course, exactly what insurance companies are for. The policies multiply, the attacks multiply, and the actuarial tables account for both.

Pet insurance policies grew from about 850,000 to over 4.4 million between 2005 and 2022 as veterinary costs rose and pet humanization made insurance feel less like a luxury and more like a parental obligation. Fatal dog attacks grew from about 28 to over 50 per year, driven by increased ownership of large breeds, the pandemic adoption boom, and inconsistent animal regulation. Both trends share a common driver: more dogs in more homes. The same pet ownership boom that fuels insurance sales also creates the conditions for more attacks, as more families (including inexperienced owners) acquire dogs they may not fully understand. More dogs means more policies and more incidents, in proportions that move together naturally.

Eighteen years of pet insurance and dog attacks growing together is one of the less spurious correlations on this site, because both trends are powered by the same underlying variable: the number of dogs in American homes. More dogs means more insurance and more risk, and the market that profits from one cannot prevent the other. The policy covers the vet bill, not the bite. The correlation is simply more dogs, more everything.