Dog Bite Statistics by State

Dog bite liability is one of the most common reasons homeowners insurance claims get filed — and one of the fastest-growing. The Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I), working with State Farm, publishes an annual look at dog-related injury claims: how many were filed, what they cost, and which states see the most.

Unlike most of the other geographic pages on this site, Triple-I only ever discloses the top 10 states by claim volume each year, not a full state-by-state breakdown — so this page is built around exactly what's been published, clearly labeled by year.

Top 10 States by Dog Bite Liability Claims

Unlike the other state-level pages in this series, this one covers only the states the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) and State Farm choose to name each year — the ten states with the most dog bite and dog-related injury liability claims. Every other state's data is folded into an undisclosed "all other states" total, so this is a top-10 spotlight, not a full 51-region ranking.

These 10 states alone accounted for 52.7% of all dog bite liability claims nationwide in 2024 (11,942 of 22,658) and roughly 55.1% of total claim value — unsurprising given they include six of the seven most populous US states, but a reminder that raw claim counts mostly track population rather than any state-specific "dog bite risk."

Claims Are Rising Faster Than They're Getting Cheaper

Nationally, dog-related injury claims jumped from 22,658 in 2024 to 28,450 in 2025 — a 25.6% increase in a single year — while total payouts rose to $1.862B. At the same time, the average cost per claim actually fell 5.5%, from $69,272 to $65,450. More claims, slightly cheaper on average: a pattern consistent with a rising volume of smaller claims alongside the historically large ones. New York held the highest average cost per claim of any state in 2025 at $92,154, followed by Connecticut and California — all high-litigation, high-medical-cost states.

Why Only 10 States?

Triple-I and State Farm have published this exact top-10 format every year for over a decade, and have never broken out full state-by-state figures publicly. That makes this fundamentally different from the Census, CAPC, and Shelter Animals Count data used elsewhere on this site, all of which publish complete 50-state datasets. We're presenting exactly what's been disclosed — no estimates for the other 40 states — rather than filling gaps with guesses.

The Big Picture

Dog bite liability claims are climbing fast — up more than 25% in a single year nationally — even as the average cost per individual claim ticked down slightly. The states that dominate the claims list are overwhelmingly the country's most populous ones, which says more about population density than about any state having unusually risky dogs. For pet owners, the clearest takeaway isn't geographic: it's that liability coverage for dog-related injuries is a real and growing cost across the board, not a niche concern.