Family pets are always a consideration when writing a home insurance policy. Things have shifted in the last few years, though, as states have moved away from excluding certain dog breeds from policies in favor of deciding whether an individual dog poses a threat.

In Florida, for example, a county recently passed an ordinance that will force those with declared "dangerous dogs" to carry $500,000 in liability coverage. The criteria they use to determine whether a dog is dangerous includes the following:

• The dog has, without provocation, aggressively bitten, attacked, or endangered a human being, or has inflicted severe injury on a human being on public or private property
• A dog shall not be declared dangerous if the threat, injury, or damage was sustained by a person who, at the time, was unlawfully on the property, or while lawfully on the property, was teasing, tormenting, abusing, or assaulting the dog or its owner or a family member.
• No dog may be declared dangerous if the dog was protecting or defending a human being within the immediate vicinity of the dog from an unjustified attack or assault.

However, normal insurance considerations for pets change when a person is using their home to breed dogs, and those who run the reported 10,000 puppy mills across the U.S. are likely not informing their insurer of their backyard operations.

Each year, the Humane World for Animals (formerly known as the Humane Society in the U.S.), publishes their “Horrible Hundred” list, which lists 100 puppy mill breeders and dealers in the U.S. that they have found to be problematic.