Anyone who doesn't insure there horse?

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classybutwild

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I'm looking for insurance quotes for my boys, one is ridden and the other is not broken yet, but is due to be started this spring he's nearly 4. and my older boy 8 is ridden but has been turned away since November due to the bad weather.

So my question is do I pay for insurance on them both or do I pay a standing order to my vets as I have been told I can set up an account so im always in credit.? what's the pros and cons of being insured and what do you insure your horse for? And if you don't insure them do you nervous of riding out hacking incase something happens?
Thanks in advance.
 
I do not insure My ponies. 1. I can't afford to pay for it. 2. I don't trust insurance companys to pay out. I've known to many worm there way out of a claim and having read all the exclutions came to the conclution that they would never pay out anyway as I will always do whats right by my ponies and will never let an insurance company dictate to me what should be done.
My ponies recieve the best care I can give them and never go without anything they need. Most vets are understanding. My old mare fell ill in Nov 2009. The bill just to diagnose her was about £2000. (this inclu £1000 for three nights stay at liphook) Both liphook and my regular vets where very understanding and I paid the bill in installments. Liphook was paid off in 5 mounths. My vets continued to treat Lucy till July 2010 when I sadly lost her to the illness. I'm still paying her bill now!
My ponies still live life to the full. Compeating and even going hunting. If anything should happen to them I would move heaven and earth. Spend every penny I have and work every hour god sends to pay for there vetenary care.
This thread will no dought have the barrage of if you can't afford insurance then you shouldn't have a horse but I don't think that is the case. If you are going to skimp on vetenary care you should insure the horse or not have one at all. But insurance is a personal prefrance as far as i'm conserned.

ETA. Insurance would not have paid out for Lucy as she was over 20 years old and had an illness. Once they reach that age they only pay for visable external injury anyway.
 
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I dont have my horses insured for vet fees or tack - my tack is either kept in my car (travelling to and from yard) fully comp insurance or in my house - covered on contents insurance.


However they are insured for public liabilty, theft and straying, personal accident etc etc - I think you should have the minimum of that, you never know what could happen not only to your horse but to others and IMO you need to have that cover, I think it is quite important and not to have it is silly, you can get this cover quite reasonably priced - its when you add extras like tack cover, vet fees etc it becomes expensive. :)
 
Giving your vet money? Why not just put it into a savings account and earn the interest yourself? Insurance dosn't just cover your vets bills. What about tack and third party insurance. If your horse injures someone or causes damamge you are liable. Imagine the scinario. Your horse gets out of the field, runs down the road, panics, tries to jump a moving car, lands on it, trashes it and causes £5K of damage to car plus requires vets fees. Or your out on a hack, something panics your horse and kicks a parked car. Seen that one happen to my car!! Could happen, then your left with a massive bill.

You could always get third party insurance with not vets cover which would be cheaper and then continue with your savings.
 
Mine aren't insured for vets fees, quite honestly (and luckily) were in a financial position where if I needed to fork out for a huge vets bill we could afford it. I try and put away some money each month to cover little things like cuts, coughs, colds etc.
 
Its a difficult one. I have the same as you - a youngster and a riding horse. When I bought my youngster, he cost very little and I thought about not insuring him, as it actually cost more or less the same to insure him with NFU as Harvey, who cost almost 8 times as much!
However, Nemo got injured in the field, possibly a kick from Harvey, but will never know for sure. The injury was so bad he had to spend 3 weeks at Rossdales in Newmarket. So the cost of that, plus the initial emergency call out on a Sunday night,plus all follow up calls came to over £7000. I could never have afforded to pay that if I hadn't been insured and even paying in installments would be more than what I pay monthly for my policy. And what if something else were to happen while still paying off the installments?
Terrible as it is, had Nemo not been insured and I knew beforehand how much the final bill was going to be (and he may never recover fully), I would have had to have him pts.
 
If you are hit with any really big fees then they are more likely to be payable to one of te larg horse hospitals as very few vets carry out major operations etc. We had not insured one of our horses and a couple of years ago he went down with colic and had to be operated on. It cost us £3k to the horse hospital and £500 to our vets, but he still died. If he'd been insured we would have paid out approx a third of that amount by the time he had his op so would have been better off. My mare has always been insured, as is my new gelding. I have benefitted financially from this as my gelding had to have a major op on his hock ciosting £4k plus £1k to local vets, only a month after I got him and my mare is very accident prone. So yes, I would advise to insure.
 
I had a £4000 bill last year, and in a weird way because of that I'm stopping my insurance. It was around £600 per year for the three horses, which is fairly cheap and really only covered vets fees. I've been paying that for the past 5 years, and have paid around £200 per year for at least the 5 years before that, for just one horse, so my total outlay is around £4500 on insurance. Because the horse who was injured is over 15, the insurance only paid £2500 of the claim anyway, which means if I had saved up the money, I would still be better off. All mine are getting older now too, so as Laura says, the insurance only covers accidents, not illnesses. I know it will be a slight gamble for the first few years (although I do have savings and credit cards), but I'm going to bank the £600 per year in a savings account. The advantage of this is that it will also pay for the little things like vaccinations that the insurance definitley won't cover. I've also joined BD as a non-competing member, so have public liability and personal accident for £40.
I'm touching wood all the time just now, because if feels like stopping the insurance is bound to bring bad things down on our heads, but the logical part of my brains says that this is a better way to do things.
 
I have one of mine insured for Third Party only. The pony isnt insured and my big lad can't get insurance due to being 15yrs old with a previous knee injury and he's pinfired....
 
If you dont want to insure vets fees, i would take out bhs gold membership it is about £55 and covers you for personal liability for all horses in your care. Then you can hack out in the knowledge should something happpen you are covered. I also agree you should put the money into your own account rather than the vets.
 
I have WHW membership which gives you PAI and Public Liability. The vets fee's I'll worry about if I need to. I'll sell the house if need be my horses will never suffer because of money but I refuse to throw £40+ a month away on insurance I might never need.

My yard has numberous people living there, and a large selection of dogs free roaming so I have absolutely no problem leaving my tack..anyone fancies taking on the dogs is welcome, I know them and once yard is shut down I wouldn't fancy my chances with them so god help a stranger!!
 
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I don't have my boy insured, purely due to him being 25. I put the amount that i'd be paying each month for the insurance into a savings account for any bills i might have. I take his saddle home with me (most expensive item of tack) but i'm not too bothered about leaving his bridle and rugs at stables.
 
I altered my insurance last year.....

I am a gold BHS member so for £57 pa I have my 3 covered for public liability/3rd part etc and I have them insured for theft, death and straying at £11 a month each with petplan. Any large vets bills I would either stand myself or PTS depending on the problem.

I've gone for this approach as when I lost my horse last year to colic ( old lad- poor prognosis) the insurance company wanted me to have him operated on- long journey, major op- long rehab etc.......and it wasn't right for my horse. Fortunatley my vet agreed and supported my decision to PTS and the insurance paid out....but I decided that in future it would be me that decided my horses fate, not an insurance company

Tack I keep at home- my horses are only 200m from the house anyway so not a problem- but I had my tack stolen a few years ago from a livery yard and it was a nightmare- not covered by insurance so I had to replace at my own expense.
 
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3rd Party Insurance is critical (WHW or BHS Gold?)

After that, I have a largish lump sum for emergencies and also put aside an amount every month, which from time to time I convert into Premium Bonds!!!

I do insure the horse which is out on loan with Pet Plan, just because I feel it is more likely to go wrong (it does more competing, etc)
 
Not read all the replies but i put a post in Comp Riders yesterday titled 'Insurance' where i basically asked the same question.

Everyone needs to be covered 3rd party liability/personnel accident. You can get this with BHS Gold membership which covers you and all your horses and is £59 a year. Then any other insurance is up to you. Both mine are currently insured - one is due to foal mid April and the other is rising 3. The rising 3yr old is going to stay insured but after my older broodmare (shes 18) has foaled i am going to cancel her insurance and she will just be covered 3rd party under my BHS Gold membership, same as her foal (which will be sold at weaning any way). She has exclusions on all legs apart from one and i would not put her through colic surgery due to her age so there is no point her really being insured after she has foaled.

I have got a ''pot'' aswell in case anything major goes wrong which i put money in each month.
 
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We have a savings account for the horses, like pp said, that incurs its own interest.

But no I wont do insurance now, just because the first horse i had i didnt insure and never had a problem, and my second horse was a bit more expensive and within weeks of insuring him after 6 months of him being uninsured he had two injuries that required vet help and the insurance found a way to wheedle themselves out of it. Icant remember who I was with, but it was a huge waste of time and money.
 
My cob is insured but my pony who I have on permanant loan isnt,as owner refuses to hand over passport,5 years later,still refuses/no contact..
I would get your vet fees covered. You never know whats on the horizon.
 
I have just cancelled the insurance on my 3 as I have had them insured for the last 11 years with the same company and have never claimed. They would no longer insure 1 of them as they just turned 20 so I have taken out BHS Gold Membership and put the insurance money into a savings account. I have been "bricking it" ever since, although I keep reminding myself insurance companies do have a tendancy to try wangle out of claims
 
It's worth noting that you may already be covered for third party/public liability on your household insurance; I have heard that you have to check you aren't already covered before you can make a claim with the BHS anyway.
 
I only have BHS gold cover for my lot as paying out insurance for 17-20 horses each year would just be stupid, so yes at the mo i have the biggest vet bill ever seen by a human, but compared to only yearly jabs and a few minor things in the last good few years i am 1000% in pocket
 
You definately need Public Liability insurance - check out WHW, BHS and the driving societies to find the best deal, I believe the WHW is cheaper than BHS but do not do a child option.

With regards to Vet fees, I also put money aside every month, I have been very lucky and now have a healthy sum saved but it could have been a different story but with a spare credit card my horse would have never gone without.

Tack is a different story, to insure you need to prove that it was kept in a secure building (security door, bars on the windows that cannot be removed, insurance approved lock, steel or similar roof/ceiling and double brick walls etc...) Taking it home is the best option but make sure your household insurance does cover it, most need items over a certain amount added as a seperate listed item with proof of value.

I also insure my trailer with one of the caravaning clubs recommended companies, much cheaper than the equine companies :)

Finally... freezemark horses, postcode everything (it is the only way you can prove it is yours if it gets recovered) including wheelbarrows, rugs etc... then get the locks out :D
 
I have 7 horses at the moment, they range from a PSG dressage horse to WB brood mares and foals and youngsters, all are worth a decent amount of money.
I only insure for death, theft and straying etc, I am insured under BD for public liability and to be honest, the vets bills I have had over the years, it has been cheaper paying the vets bills rather than paying insurance - and I have had quite a few bills!!
 
I've paid insurance for about 5 years, and never had to use it- was getting to the point of thinking there was no point and it was a waste of money...

Then this year I've racked up a 2500 vets bill for 2 different things- if I didn't have insurance, I couldn't afford his vets care.

I'm covered for 3rd party, vets bills, removal an up to £1000 replCement for 30pm, with up to 5000 in vets bills.

I'll never not have insurance again!!!
 
CuriousYellow said:
I altered my insurance last year.....

I am a gold BHS member so for £57 pa I have my 3 covered for public liability/3rd part etc and I have them insured for theft, death and straying at £11 a month each with petplan..
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Didnt realise about gold BHS membership DOH.. :mad: I have one horse with NFU and the other with Pet plan covering the basics such as public liability,
personal accident plus theft and straying - I will change to BHS this year as this will save some ££ - just wondering about theft and straying - does anyone have any suggestions for insurers re this part or otherwise I will contact my current insurers and see who does best deal.. :)
 
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