First, it's important to understand who is an insured under a homeowners policy. Insured is a defined term on most homeowners policies so that it is clearly understood who is covered by the terms of the policy. Under the ISO HO 00 03, "insured" is defined as follows:

"Insured" means: a. You and residents of your household who are:

(1) Your relatives; or

(2) Other persons under the age of 21 and in your care or the care of a resident of your household who is your relative;

b. A student enrolled in school full-time, as defined by the school, who was a resident of your household before moving out to attend school, provided the student is under the age of:

(1) 24 and your relative; or

(2) 21 and in your care or the care of a resident of your household who is your relative; or

c. Under Section II:

(1) With respect to animals or watercraft to which this Policy applies, any person or organization legally responsible for these animals or watercraft which are owned by you or any person described in 9.a. or b. "Insured" does not mean a person or organization using or having custody of these animals or watercraft in the course of any "business" or without consent of the owner; or

(2) With respect to a "motor vehicle" to which this Policy applies:

(a) Persons while engaged in your employ or that of any person described in 9.a. or b.; or

(b) Other persons using the vehicle on an "insured location" with your consent.

Notice first that in order to be considered an insured, relatives must be residents of the household. We don't know for sure that Christian and Abilene Moreno live separately, but from what we can gather we are going to assume that they live in a separate residence and do not live with Christian's parents. This means that they are not resident relatives, and are not insureds as defined in the policy.

But there's a second section for Section II of the policy, the liability section. In this definition of "insured", a person is an "insured" if they are legally responsible for animals that are owned by the named insured or anyone defined as an "insured" in the policy. We have already established that Christian and Abilene are not insureds as far as we can tell.

So we continue through the policy. Under Section II Medical Payments, there is coverage if injury or damage is caused by an animal owned by or in the care of an "insured". We have already established that Christian and Abilene are not insureds. However, were the dogs in the care of Carlos, Christian's father? Had Christian and Abilene just dropped the dogs off for the parents to pet sit while they were on vacation or were they picking the dogs up from the parents who had been dog sitting? That we don't know. If they had been pet sitting, a case could be made for coverage. However, from what little information we have, it sounds like Christian and Abilene were simply visiting the parents and children often do, and they'd taken the dogs with them. If that is the case, then Allstate is correct in its stance and it does not own for any damages suffered by Mr. Najera.

So is there any coverage at all? Here we need to look at Christian and Abilene, and whether or not they have a homeowners or tenants policy for their residence. If they have a homeowners policy, then they are the insureds and coverage applies. The tenants policy works the same way, so if they have a tenants policy coverage would apply. The policy that should be looked at for coverage for this incident is not Carlos Moreno's homeowners policy, but Christian and Abilene's homeowners or tenants policy if they have one.