Facebook photo breeds insurance dogfight

A North Carolina woman’s Rottweiler mix caused her to lose her personal umbrella liability insurance after her insurer looked at its photos on Facebook, deeming it a potentially dangerous breed not listed on her application.

Melina Efthimiadis, a veterinarian, told reporters for United Press International that she and her husband decided to add personal umbrella liability insurance to their Nationwide homeowner's insurance policy. The process required them to list the breeds of their three dogs — a Shih Tzu/Yorkie mix, a hound and a hound/Lab mix — on the application.

She said she was shocked to hear that Nationwide canceled her policy.

"We were being canceled because we had an ineligible dog breed that we failed to disclose," Dr. Efthimiadis told reporters. "They sent us the pictures that they had taken off of my Facebook page of my dog Zeus who is a Lab/hound mix. In the picture, the dogs are running through the snow with their blankets on it just didn't seem that threatening to me," she said.

She told the UPI reporters that the insurer incorrectly identified Zeus as a Rottweiler mix, a breed the company considers to be potentially dangerous. Eventually Nationwide reinstated her policy but she canceled it, saying she did not want to work with an insurer that discriminates based on dog breeds.