Agria - anyone been refused a renewal due to over use??

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Gotthebugagain

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I have insured my horse for 2 years with Agria which offers lifetime cover (i.e no condition is excluded after you claim). In the first year I paid approx £450 in premiums and they paid out over £6k in claims. This year my premium was £500 and they have paid out £1200 in claims.

Most of this is for treatment for DJD, which is of course going to be an ongoing issue.

My insurance is due for renewal again in May this year. She's due for some top up injections but I'm worried if I do them now Agria will surely just decline to insure her next year?! Or maybe they might do that anyway so best to get it all done now?? I just can't wrap my head around how their business model works!

Has anyone experienced either a) Agria declining to renew cover or b) continuing to pay out over multiple years for an ongoing condition (even if claims are higher than premiums!)

Any intel welcomed. Thanks.
 
Gotthebugagain said:
I have insured my horse for 2 years with Agria which offers lifetime cover (i.e no condition is excluded after you claim). In the first year I paid approx £450 in premiums and they paid out over £6k in claims. This year my premium was £500 and they have paid out £1200 in claims.

Most of this is for treatment for DJD, which is of course going to be an ongoing issue.

My insurance is due for renewal again in May this year. She's due for some top up injections but I'm worried if I do them now Agria will surely just decline to insure her next year?! Or maybe they might do that anyway so best to get it all done now?? I just can't wrap my head around how their business model works!

Has anyone experienced either a) Agria declining to renew cover or b) continuing to pay out over multiple years for an ongoing condition (even if claims are higher than premiums!)

Any intel welcomed. Thanks.
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I thought that was the whole point of the policy? That conditions are not excluded, but that they have a cap on each condition over the life of the policy?

Genuinely interested as I think a lifetime policy is best in theory, as you can turn a horse away if there is an issue to see if it settles alone, rather than clobbering the horse with everything at once before the year is up.
 
Yes it is the whole point of the policy but at some point it must become un-commercial for them to carry on insuring certain customers. There is no cap on each condition, certainly with my policy as far as I am aware. But within the terms and conditions they reserve the right to not offer a renewal. It's kind of the crux of my question - is there a tipping point and if so what is it?!
 
I expect the premiums will increase if you make a lot of claims and possibly an increased excess before you can submit a claim. I think it is also co insurance which means you probably have an excess then you always pay a percentage of the vet bills as well.
 
I just assumed that in the end the premium would be raised to cover the cost of ongoing treatment for chronic conditions. ETA Checking their site, they say not.

Maybe they reckon they save so much from vets being able to prescribe Dr Green or a wait and see approach to other customer that they don't need to do that.

ETA I think it must be to do with the fact that their insurance is vet fees per year and all the others, afaik, are vet fees per incident. That's a huge difference in cover. One bad accident needing stitching, bandaging, flensing and infection control and you could be out of vet cover for every other incident.
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Gotthebugagain said:
Yes it is the whole point of the policy but at some point it must become un-commercial for them to carry on insuring certain customers. There is no cap on each condition, certainly with my policy as far as I am aware. But within the terms and conditions they reserve the right to not offer a renewal. It's kind of the crux of my question - is there a tipping point and if so what is it?!
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I’m not sure they legally could? If they have sold you a product on lifetime cover up to max insured they have to honour it surely. Otherwise it would be a fraudulent sale.

I suppose they could cancel cover on a horse but continue to pay out on the specific condition
 
Going back to my post at 12, I wonder how many people swap to Agria from other providers and don't even realise that the vet fees are per year not per incident?
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SO1 said:
I expect the premiums will increase if you make a lot of claims and possibly an increased excess before you can submit a claim. I think it is also co insurance which means you probably have an excess then you always pay a percentage of the vet bills as well.
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Yes, I am expecting the premium to go up this year (although I was surprised when it only went up £50 after the first year after I claimed £6k in fees and had a DJD diagnosis 🙈 )
 
ycbm said:
I just assumed that in the end the premium would be raised to cover the cost of ongoing treatment for chronic conditions. ETA Checking their site, they say not.

Maybe they reckon they save so much from vets being able to prescribe Dr Green or a wait and see approach to other customer that they don't need to do that.

ETA I think it must be to do with the fact that their insurance is vet fees per year and all the others, afaik, are vet fees per incident. That's a huge difference in cover. One bad accident needing stitching, bandaging, flensing and infection control and you could be out of vet cover for every other incident.
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Yes, vet fees are per limited per year. Thankfully this hasn't been an issue for me yet but I agree it is a risk.
 
ihatework said:
I’m not sure they legally could? If they have sold you a product on lifetime cover up to max insured they have to honour it surely. Otherwise it would be a fraudulent sale.
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This is what I am not sure about! I agree it seems fraudulent (or at least very misleading) to advertise lifetime cover and then decline to renew due to a lifetime condition. But they are not legally obliged to keep insuring anyone.

@Red-1 I have emailed Alice but not heard back yet.
 
The business model must be that more people insure and don't claim (as they don't feel rushed into treatment compared to a traditional policy) vs. your situation where you've had a big claim in year one.

If you did a pole on here many many people pay £500-800 a year and never claim - sometimes for 10+ years.

If you were their normal customer they would go bust very quickly - you must be the exception rather than the normal.

I think their terms would be misleading if they increased your premium massively because of a claim - because that isn't really lifetime cover - if you can't afford the cover in the year after a claim!!
 
Polos Mum said:
The business model must be that more people insure and don't claim (as they don't feel rushed into treatment compared to a traditional policy) vs. your situation where you've had a big claim in year one.
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Yes, and the fact that you need to pay 25% of every claim, so it makes you think twice before deciding what investigations/treatments to pursue. That's a good point re. increasing premiums, really hope that's true!
 
ycbm said:
ETA I think it must be to do with the fact that their insurance is vet fees per year and all the others, afaik, are vet fees per incident. That's a huge difference in cover. One bad accident needing stitching, bandaging, flensing and infection control and you could be out of vet cover for every other incident.
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This is what put me off tbh, and I know I am pretty risk-averse.
 
I'm hoping people are correct in saying that the companies count on most people not claiming. In 9 months of owning little Willy, we are now maxed out on two claims. I'm told they will pay out on his urethra obstruction as it's unrelated to the broken leg. If they don't, look out for a Gofundme, ha ha! We're so far on £4700 for this one (the last one was £5,800 or so) and that's assuming he won't need surgery. I'll find out, tomorrow.
 
Fransurrey said:
I'm hoping people are correct in saying that the companies count on most people not claiming. In 9 months of owning little Willy, we are now maxed out on two claims. I'm told they will pay out on his urethra obstruction as it's unrelated to the broken leg. If they don't, look out for a Gofundme, ha ha! We're so far on £4700 for this one (the last one was £5,800 or so) and that's assuming he won't need surgery. I'll find out, tomorrow.
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That's bad luck :( What company is that with FS, presumably not Agria?
 
I like the sound of Agria in theory so will follow this with interest. I’d love to be able to have cover where I have breathing space to take a minimal intervention approach to start with without being forced to rush into expensive and invasive procedures just due to insurance time limits.

I remember specifically being this up about 15 years ago at a vet and KBIS presentation and got scoffed at.
 
I've made 2 sizable claims this past year with NFU for 2 horses, my premiums did not go up but my excess did. NFU is per year rather than incident, so am hoping that's it for a while!
 
I think with something like Agria, its good to have as a 'better than nothing' option rather than having it to ensure all eventuality is covered.. £400 + 25% from memory is my 'excess' and I figured for the sake of £23.90 per month, I'd rather pay £4k of a £10k surgery than the full amount. For anything sub £1k I wouldn't bother claiming.
 
ycbm said:
That's bad luck :( What company is that with FS, presumably not Agria?
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I'm Petplan, who I have to say have always been good at paying out. Have had it confirmed though that this one is all on me, so there goes my holiday in the Bahamas...I've been madly re-arranging my dormant ISAs and opening a Bond this afternoon, so I can at least generate some easy income in a year, although shame it won't cover £4700...
 
I use agria for any horses that wouldn’t have too many exclusions and they are great. I can get issues investigated early without worrying about exclusions at the next renewal and I don’t have to rush to drastic treatment. For me the alternative would be to self insure so the excess and the 25% contribution doesn’t bother me.
 
I switched to Agria over a year ago after NFU put the excess and premiums up. Agree it’s a risk with it being a “per year” total amount, but I went for £10k per year cover to mitigate that to some degree. Decided I’d rather pay 25% of a 10k claim than continue paying an extortionate amount per month, and also to have lifetime cover (horse had no pre-existing issues and we’d never claimed on the previous policy)

We had a significant amount to claim last year (approx £5k in total I think) and premium hasn’t increased at all this year. And they’ve generally been pretty quick to pay out too, which is great.
 
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