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HopOnTrot

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22 year old, semi retired, just had our insurance renewal through and these are the exclusions.

Renewal is £98 a month for £5k vets fees. Is there anything I could actually claim for? Should I drop it to £3k and add disposal back in? I mean, she could develop asthma? A wonky tail? Front legs are still covered? Laminitis isn’t excluded?

Thoughts?

Just to add, I do have the cash to pay for vets bills but I prefer to insure to avoid those difficult “I need £5k of family money to spend on my old broken pony”
 

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i think it depends what level of veterinary input you’re prepared to put an older horse through - personally i’d keep her insured as you’ve only got 1 bit of leg excluded! is it worth shopping around for a lower premium?

i’m with insurance emporium and have to pay 17% of every invoice - it stings when i do claim, but keeps the monthly premiums down.
 
I moved my 2 with lots of restrictions to Harry Hall external injuries policy. I don't have colic cover on it but you can pay extra

It very much depends on what interventions you'd be happy to do and what your personal savings are though.
 
I have a 22 year old with exclusions. I'm with KBIS and they moved her onto veteran cover when she hit 20. The maximum claim was £2,000 and the premium was nearly £2,000, so i stopped insuring her. I wouldn't put her through any major treatment, and the premium I've saved would cover a lot of the more minor stuff.
 
When my younger horses insurance excluded just about everything I put him on catastrophe cover. It covers £7K PA of vet treatments for accident and illness including colic and joint flushes.
My old retiree isn’t insured due to exclusions (many more than you have!) as decisions will have to be made at some point for him probably in the not too distant future. If I had put catastrophe cover on him a couple of years ago it would have saved me a fortune when he got poorly 🙄
 
I don’t think your list of exclusions is too bad- mine has many more (although most of them have review dates so can be removed upon veterinary letter) Your premium is high though, so worth shopping around or looking into catastrophe cover
 
I’ve stopped mine as well and moved to injury only cover as per SEL above. I was paying £100 a month and then got a vet bill for roughly the same amount for something excluded! He’s only 15 but has made some good use of his insurance over the years so not enough left to justify continuing at that price.
 
Floofball said:
When my younger horses insurance excluded just about everything I put him on catastrophe cover. It covers £7K PA of vet treatments for accident and illness including colic and joint flushes.
My old retiree isn’t insured due to exclusions (many more than you have!) as decisions will have to be made at some point for him probably in the not too distant future. If I had put catastrophe cover on him a couple of years ago it would have saved me a fortune when he got poorly 🙄
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How much is catastrophe cover?
 
I cancelled Bears insurance at around that age as I knew I wouldn't be prepared to put him through any invasive treatment such as a colic op and any injuries I could pay for myself, thankfully he lived a long happy retired life and old age just caught up in the end
 
Would you put a horse of that age through colic surgery? I'd cancel and if you want insurance just take the external injuries/catastrophe type cover.
£1200 a year in a savings account would already cover quite a bit.
 
My lot are all insured with Harry Hall as I just can't justify the huge monthly premiums anymore.

I've increased the cover to £3k and added the colic cover too.

I have a credit card with a large credit limit which is my fall back to cover anything the insurance wouldn't cover. I'm quite strict about what I would and wouldn't put my boys through, my decisions on this is based on the recovery time and process/management post vet intervention.
 
Could you put £100 a month away in a savings account to use for vet fees if needed. If not needed at least you'll have a pot of money to spend one day.
 
I’m hazarding a guess that’s a Petplan policy. I’m not sure now but a few years ago they used to be one of, if not the only, insurer to provide cover for illnesses as well as injuries up to 25, most policies stop at 20 and move you onto veteran cover/catastrophe cover/injury only.
They also used to be able to review exclusions, nothing where there was bone involvement/ongoing conditions but it would be worth a call to see what they’d need to reduce or remove some of those exclusions.

Personally at that age I’d struggle to want to put a horse through major surgery or box rest or treatment so I’d probably swap to a third party/injury only type policy and save the monthly premium up
 
I stopped insuring mine some years ago and put £2K into a savings account and add £200 to it each month. I now have a decent sum and haven't had the vet out for anything that I would have been able to claim for. I have also joined World Horse Welfare as that gives £1500 of accidental injury cover too plus I feel that my membership fee is doing some good.

Mine are all 20+ and I wouldn't put any of them through colic surgery now.
 
What about Cushings is that something that could happen and the medication would be covered for at least a year?
 
For those that ask, colic is excluded so the surgery question is irrelevant (and no I wouldn't). The stomach issue is still ongoing and if the nodule grows back and her stomach doesn't empty again then I will call it a day.

Her stomach issue wiped out £5k really quickly, the medication alone was crazy. What other survivable issues could happen that run up £5k in 6 weeks?

Savings, not an issue, I have them but I'm also getting her scoped every 3 months at the moment to monitor the other issue.

I've emailed PetPlan to see what it would cost to have £3k cover instead of £5, I did that with the elderly terrier's insurance and went from £8k a year to £4k a year as the original renewal was more than his monthly vet treatments, he ended up being PTS at around the insurance limit so that gamble mostly broke even.
 
To be blunt, with a number of ongoing issues and her age, I’d probably be asking myself what sort of expensive interventions would you be willing and wanting to undertake? That would probably be the basis of whether to keep insuring. £1-1.2k in premiums would cover basic routine kind of stuff per year. Are you going to want to operate or do performance work ups? Personally I wouldn’t
 
I have 3 which makes insurance prohibitive.

Most other providers will have her on a veteran / external issues only policy - which I think are rarely worth it - a field cut even with stitched and some antibiotics is sub £500 and you would hope you don't have 3 of those a year!

It is hard to think of some intervention that would be perfectly acceptable to a 22 y/o with some ongoing issues that was going to be covered by insurance and that cost more than £1.2k per year.
 
Polos Mum said:
I have 3 which makes insurance prohibitive.

Most other providers will have her on a veteran / external issues only policy - which I think are rarely worth it - a field cut even with stitched and some antibiotics is sub £500 and you would hope you don't have 3 of those a year!

It is hard to think of some intervention that would be perfectly acceptable to a 22 y/o with some ongoing issues that was going to be covered by insurance and that cost more than £1.2k per year.
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I wouldn't need 3 a year to break even.

My external injuries policy costs about £200 a year but less by the time you account for tack and public liability. Excess is £165 so anything over £300 is

Even just cuts with stitching have easily exceeded £500 by the time you've paid for an emergency call out (and mine loves a weekend or bank holiday to injure himself); examination plus sedation; stitching; antibiotics oral and injection; pain relief oral and injection. Then probably 2 return visits, one to check healing and one to remove stitching or staples. If it's under 4 figures, it's not by much.

Add poss X rays if it looks like a kick in a vulnerable place. Mine banged his head, injured his eye and required a couple of days hospitalised covered by my policy. Just that one covered several years of premiums.
 
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