(MONEY Magazine) – Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. With dog-bite incidents accounting for almost a third of liability claims against homeowners policies, insurers are increasingly canceling or refusing to issue homeowners insurance for people who own dogs with a tendency to bite. There's no industrywide blacklist of breeds, but pit bulls, rottweilers and German shepherds--the three most likely to gnaw on the neighbors--draw the most bark from insurers. Metropolitan Life is pickier: It won't insure owners of huskies, chow chows or Doberman pinschers either. Allstate automatically turns away only pit bull owners but--along with Travelers, Prudential and State Farm, which don't discriminate against particular breeds--also asks about any dog's biting history when deciding whether to write or continue a policy.

Not all bites are equally black marks. If, for example, your dog bit a child who was touching her new puppies, you probably won't lose your insurance.

If your dog does bite someone, or if you own a problem breed, one solution is to get a policy that covers everything but dog bites, which most companies will write. Plus, if you act quickly to prevent another bite--by having the dog spayed, for example, or by sending it to obedience school--you're less likely to endanger your coverage. "As there are good and bad dogs," says Gary Hafner, director of underwriting for Travelers, "so are there good and bad owners."

--VANESSA RICHARDSON