Advice on Ins re colic

[Nina76]

Hi All,

Should the forum have been working properly yesterday evening I would have posted a vibes please, thankfully however the vet seemed to do the trick without all your help!

She was not herself and was waiting at the gate when I got to the yard at 5.30, this has never happened before! She is out 24*7*365 unless we have something special the next day. She has no desire to leave her herd and come and do work normally!
She was passing droppings but generally off colour, so just did a gentle lunging, still not up to par, so put her in the stable and kept an eye on her, after half an hour her head was either down toward the floor or looking at her belly, and no interest in food! (def not her!) Got some more experienced peeps to confirm and started walking her in hand while waiting for vet.
The vet was great, she had anti spasmodics and a bit of painkiller and after an hour she really picked up, Settled her in for the night with a small mashup of her conditioning mix and no hay, the girls that live in at the yard did some overnight checks for me and she has been turned out this morning seemingly fine. Will be back this eve to double check and bring her in for an hour or so of observation.

big box of crimbo sweeties for getting this far..

2 main questions now,
Q1. Should I claim for the emergency call out and colic treatment or are they likely to then exclude in future? I am with the evil ones btw, they paid out for treatment (eventually) on her insect bites (local surgery required to remove them after all else failed) but then they excluded similar conditions in the future. Bit worried that maybe next time colic could be worse, ie surgery etc and could cost me much more????

Q2. Having had this is it likely to re-occur? Are some horses more colicky (sp?) than others? I have had her a year and a half now and this is our first experience of it. I'm hoping its the last.

Thanks everyone.

 

[humblepie]

I think you will find that if you don't tell the insurance company your future insurance is likely to be invalid anyway since they would want to know the full medical history of the horse. Have a read through of the policy and also hope some other people reply. Hope she is better. I would ask your vet about whether it is likely to reoccur and what they think caused it.

 

[Nina76]

Thanks benjamin

Probably true, as they wanted all her vets records before when they looking at the insect bite claim! BUGGER!

I wanted to switch to NFU as rubbish ones were were soooo slow for the bite claim, but NFU wanted a new 5 stage cert doing so I just left it in the end as they had eventually paid up

Will see if anyone else suggests differently.

Vet suggested may have been caused by frosty grass? or if the haylage out in the field was new/fresh. Didn't seem to have a definite cause. I was just so relieved she turned around and picked up, I didnt ask about it re-occurring at the time!

 

[flaxen]

If you are insured with who I think you are then you are a bit stuffed if you claim now and your bill may not be much over your excess then you will definately be excluded for colic in the future and if you dont tell them she has had colic now and gets it again in the future and requires surgery then they will realise from her history that she has had it before then they will refuse to pay out and you will end up with a huge vet bill.

This insurance company are notorius bad payers and being a veterinary nurse and worked in equine hospitals we insist that the client pays us and claims back them selves as they take monthes and come up with excuses to not to pay.

Any number of things could have triggered her mild bout and you cant say whether it will or wont reaccur, you can try to avoid the risk factors of frosty grass as we saw a lot of horses with colic when the frost starts, turn her out when it has melted or give her hay to eat, dont change on to new hay / haylage with out slowly mixing it over, make sure her worming is up to date as well. Hope this helps.

 

[nikkinoo]

Hi, ditto the advice off "flaxen"

Colic may never return but I would personally pay this bill as excess on policies are usually about a hundred or so depending on what you took out. and vets bill for the call out and treatment wouldnt be worth the hassle claiming for it. (how much was the bill?)

glad your horse ok though, its a frightning time having colic

 

[Nina76]

Thanks Nikkinoo and flaxen

She's usually out 24*7 so not much option of waiting for the frost to melt Hmmm, could go assisted livery, but can't realistically afford that for anything longer than a week or so for emg etc

Turnout is in a large field with a full 'herd' of about 20 other mares, So giving her seperate hay/haylage is again a bit tricky as the YO hays the field daily via tractor, hmmm once again.

ETS - Whole yard is wormed on strict scehdule so no worries re that either. hmmm again.

I have always paid up first then claimed back as I don't think penalising the vets for months while the ins co messes everyone about is a good way of doing business, luckily I have large credit limits! I am expecting the cost to be circa £200, and my policy excess is £100 anyway. So while it means no shows/hunting for a while its not a disaster financially. It is more the future impact I am worried about.

Is there a way of notifying them but not claiming??? Or is that pointless and it would still get excluded next year? If as you say I don't let them know and we have another issue next year that is worth a big claim, they may reject it anyway after they get her records!

Maybe I'll just go to BHS for liability and give up vets bills and death cover....

 

[nikkinoo]

ahh dilema, I would say dont say anything as if there is a re occurance the insurers could be funny and not pay out.
saying that im sure you are "ment" to notify them but doubt anybody does, if questioned I would just say she was fine it was a false alarm as you didnt have to call the vet back out the next day (This usually happens if they have it quite bad)

I see what you mean about not being able to limit her eating frosty grass, our yard has a 365 day turnout field with haylage being put down and can be hard to mix the haylage when it is taken by tractor in big bale form,

Is there any chance you could contact the previous owners to see if she ever had any occurences before you bought her.
she may have just eaten something from a hedge if grass is limited (as it is in our fields)

I know you say you are on a strict worming programme but have you recently wormed,
A guy on our yard had bought a new horse and wormed him with a very popular wormer (wont mention brand) and the horse had about of colic from it (it did state this was a side affect on the safety leaflet) he had to have vet out for his horse evening and following morning.

xx

 

[Nina76]

nikkinoo

all good ideas, but unfortunately she came from a dealer (our yard) who got her from a dealer! her passport has the breeder details in it, but nothing else, would love to speak previous owners but don't think I can

Last wormed start of Nov, not the noromectin paste one, it was the white liquid over the 5 days (forgotten the name

) I'm guessing we'll be due for a noromectin in next few weeks will check my schedule later. So nothing recent enough to set this off.

Just had another text from another girl down the yard and she is still doing fine, they've been back up the field to check again, so it does look like we're out of the woods, this time at least.

Maybe I should just be grateful she's ok and stop worrying about it, but the fear of colic surgery running into the thousands then not getting the cash back is dodgy!

 

[eggs]

[ QUOTE ]

I wanted to switch to NFU as rubbish ones were were soooo slow for the bite claim, but NFU wanted a new 5 stage cert doing so I just left it in the end as they had eventually paid up


[/ QUOTE ]

Most of my horses were insured with NFU and I wanted to switch my other two to them as well. Due to the value of my just backed three year old they wanted a full vetting (I had had her since a foal and never had a claim). I spoke to my vet who did an "insurance vetting" as I obviously could not gallop her (she was only just backed). NFU were happy with this.

 

[Black_Horse_White]

My horse had colic for the first time the beginning of this year, i never informed the NFU. I think if it happens again and he has to have surgery i would then inform them. As long as you are honest with them and tell them he has had it before they should pay out. They did with my dog as i didn't claim first off but as his illness got worse i did. And they also payed me out for the treatment i hadn't claimed for. And it wasn't excluded either.