are your horses insured?

Yep always for at least vet fees and third party. An old hunter of mine tap danced across a jeeps bonnet once and broke my friends leg many years ago he was totally unharmed but the jeep and my friend had met their match freak accident but would never had been able to afford that if I hadn't have had 3rd party liability never mind some huge vet bills over the years.
 
I have third party cover with the BHS (£60).
Tack is stored in house so covered in home insurance
I thought hard about vets fees but to get reasonable premiums i had to go for high excess £500.
My logic is for £500 I can get an emergancy call out, basic stitch up, antibiotics and repeat check up (or equivalent for 'every day' stuff)
Ponies are all old so most stuff isn't covered anyway - with age and exclusions
I wouldn't put them through major surgery
And I have my own land so can easily give a good dose of Dr Green without worrying about the cost or if they need to be ornaments that's fine too.

I want to be able to make all and any decisions regarding what they do or don't have without having to argue/ justify my decisions - too many insurance Co's just don't want to listen to logic about what's best and too many horses rush into treatment as they have to have a certain amount of things done 'before the insurance runs out'
 
Yep - I have paid £22 a month for the last 5 years, and it still doesn't come close to the vet bill for £5000 they paid for two years ago!

I'd never go without insurance for any of my animals.
 
Only for public liability through bhs, i also have 3 k worth of vet cover through my rider policy for any accidents and this way they can't say he is uninsured due to x y and z. Typical ex racer so has lumps and bumps which mean only 1 leg would actually be insurable!
 
Yes, because she is my only horse and is in full work, jumping and cross country included; had a dog who wasn't and regretted it - broken leg final bill over £3000! I would much rather be insured than not be able to afford it and have to have her pts.
 
Dizzydancer said:
Only for public liability through bhs, i also have 3 k worth of vet cover through my rider policy for any accidents and this way they can't say he is uninsured due to x y and z. Typical ex racer so has lumps and bumps which mean only 1 leg would actually be insurable!
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Dizzy Dancer - can I ask what your rider policy is which covers vets fees up to 3grand please?
 
Yes- even if I saved the money from the premiums, it wouldn't even reach £300 in the year! Looking at getting just vets bills through petplan and third party through BHS though. I wouldn't not risk insurance.
 
My final bill for Ruby is approx €11,500. Thank god I had insurance for her. It will only cover the 1st €5000 but at least it's something. I'd gladly pay all of it myself if it meant I could have her back. :(
All my others are insured with top insurance. Costs around €200 a month for the 3 but it's worth it for the peace of mind.
 
No. We're Gold members of BHS, for 3rd party insurance and anything else, we pay for ourselves.
We did, over the years, spend a fortune on insurnce without a claim and then on one occasion when we wanted to claim there were so many reasons why the ins co found to wriggle out of paying, we vowed never again.
We have already decided though that we would be unlikely to put any of our horses through major surgery or anything which involved prolonged box-rest, so are unlikely to be spending £thousands.
 
I've just drastically reduced my ponies insurance and any further riding horses will not be insured for vets fees or at least, not £5K per condition. after two years of (successful) claiming for vets fees it's changed my mind about it and the system completely and I am in a better position now to pay for fees I feel necessary (ie savings).

VF insurance forces your hand to do invasive treatments for lamenesses when quite often they need turning out for a year (and I can do that). Insurance then excludes that condition/limb. Insurance rarely pays out for death or LOU. Insurance makes you declare things that won't cause a long term problem, even if you don't claim just so they can may exempt anything remotely similar. I would no longer put a horse through long term box rest or colic surgery or anything else costing that sort of money although I understand why others do.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
No. We're Gold members of BHS, for 3rd party insurance and anything else, we pay for ourselves.
We did, over the years, spend a fortune on insurnce without a claim and then on one occasion when we wanted to claim there were so many reasons why the ins co found to wriggle out of paying, we vowed never again.
We have already decided though that we would be unlikely to put any of our horses through major surgery or anything which involved prolonged box-rest, so are unlikely to be spending £thousands.
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Similar story - I had a TB eventer insured LOU and full vet bills etc. He got cancer and had an op and the insurance payout was only what I'd paid in in premiums that year. I had to pay lots too for what they didn't cover. They then excluded cancer from his insurance and put the premiums up to £70 a month. He died of cancer but because it was more than a year after the initial claim I didn't get a penny for him.

I stopped insuring then and put the money into a savings account instead. I have BHS gold membership for public liability.

I worked out a while ago on another thread that by not insuring the horses I have had since then I have saved £14,000 for all the horses and ponies I have had over 14 years. I have had one big incident in that time for a poke in the eye that caused an ulcer and needed two ops but I am still way up in money terms.

The whole insurance claiming experience was very difficult as they did try to wriggle out of paying anything at all it really put me off. I have been lucky that my horses have been relatively healthy since.

I don't know whether I would insure again if I bought a new horse - my current one is 22 so not a candidate for large operations etc.
 
SuperH said:
Not for vet bills but both are for public liability, that really is a must.
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Just an example of this, my car was parked outside my old yard a couple of months back when a child's pony who had fallen off in the forest down the road, came galloping up the road and being unable to stop landed on top of my car bonnet. Thankfully both child and pony were ok but the repair cost nearly 1000.00 and thank god the child's mothers had insurance as what with the car bill and the hefty vets fees she would've had to pay out, it would've cost thousands.
 
Insurance companies only survive commercially because overall you pay them more than they pay out - they would go bust if that wasn't the case. It is their job to try and avoid paying you hence all the nasty stories on here of insurance co's not paying out over minor technicalities.
Yes some people come out ahead but they are in the minority.

Public liabiltiy is totally different as none (I'm guessing!) of us could afford a few £million public liabilty claim - the commercial point still is the same although BHS is only £60 a year the number of big claims they pay out is very very small so they make more from us than they pay out.
 
No - but I put £50 per horse into premium bonds every month and have additional money I can use if I need to,

I do have 3rd party insurance via BHS - couldn't sleep without that!
 
I've been put off horse insurance by too many people having problems getting various companies to pay out, and people's trouble with silly exclusions etc.

I have BHS gold membership which covers me for third party. My insurance consists of an ISA which I put my "insurance" money into whenever I think on, and a few Premium Bonds I could cash in if I needed to, and a nil balance credit card waiting in the wings.

No point insuring my tack, because even though it is generally quite new and worth a small fortune, I've never come across a tack room yet that has the type of locks which insurance companies would cover, so that would be a waste of money, so I keep mine in a locked cabinet - plus people keep leaving the tack rooms open on the yard I'm on at the moment, I'm forever locking them on a night even though none of my stuff is in there, I'd be beside myself worrying on a daily basis if I kept my tack in there!!!

I do have my trailer covered as I know that 99.9% of the time I fulfill every criteria (including putting my wheel lock on whenever I'm at a show etc, which a lot of people don't realise is usually in the policy small print!).

Oh and I keep my fingers crossed ;) :) :) :)
 
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Yes when young but when old no as I would pay for ie a minor illness out of pocket, but anything major I would PTS and so wouldnt treat. I had BHS GOLD in last years of my last horse. Purely for coming along main road and public liability. It was far too expensive once he was old. But he had been in his younger years.
 
Seren was not insured in latter years, but was when she was younger, and I never made a single claim, typically when I stopped insuring her she broke. My parents lent me the money and I am paying them back slowly now I can afford to do so.
I have insured Nell as I do not have any savings at the moment so could not afford major vets bills, ideally though I would like to be in the position whereby I have savings and will not be insured for vets fees, I currently pay around £21 per month
 
Both mine are insured for vet bills - i learnt a lesson after my mare last year ran up a large vet bill i had to pay, if she would have been insured i would have saved myself alot of money :/
 
Mine are insured, I'd wondered about putting money into savings and not bothering but now I'm forever grateful I did have insurance - on wednesday I found my TB with an arterial bleed - he had guttural pouch mycosis. He had surgery yesterday and has come through it well. The alternative would have been to put to sleep, as he would have bled again and eventually bled to death. There are some things you would never imagine in a million years, and this was one of them. Well worth the £38 a month imo!!!
 
No, only public liability. Had rubbish experiences time and again with not being paid out by insurers it is a waste of money imo!
 
Yep. Had a £5k vet bill 2 years ago that was covered fully by insurance thank goodness. My horse is 19 and doesn't go out competing - he was kicked in the field & broke his leg! I'd never risk not insuring x
 
My vet bill for a lameness issue last year was £10k, so I was mightily pleased to be insured.

I also had 3rd party via the BHS.
 
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