Dog bites accounted for more than one-third of all homeowners insurance liability claim dollars paid out in 2012, costing more than $489 million, according to the industry’s Insurance Information Institute (III) and insurer State Farm.

While the number of claims fell by 1.4 percent in 2012—the first decline since 2010—the costs of settling dog bite claims continued to rise, by 1.2 percent, last year, according to an analysis of homeowners insurance data by the III.

The average cost paid out for dog bite claims was $29,752 in 2012 compared to $29,396 in 2011.

Prescription drugs are a major cost for many people.  The good news is that there are ways to take control and reduce high costs from impacting your budget.

Strategy #1: Ask your doctor if generics will work for you.  This won't work for everybody, but many popular drugs are available in generic form for a dramatically reduced price.

Strategy #2: Check out the possibility of getting free prescription drugs.  Go to the Partnership for Prescription Assistance www.pparx.org.  This website helps you find drugs that are eligible for financial assistance.  These "patient assistance programs" are generally for low income households and you may have to verify your income and medical expenses.

Still, study suggests, efforts needed to reduce errors that lead to claimsEfforts to lower health care costs in the United States have focused at times on demands to reform the medical malpractice system, with some researchers asserting that large, headline-grabbing and “frivolous” payouts are among the heaviest drains on health care resources. But a new review of malpractice claims by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests such assertions are wrong.

In their review of malpractice payouts over $1 million, the researchers say those payments added up to roughly $1.4 billion a year, making up far less than 1 percent of national medical expenditures in the United States.