B****y insurance company...........

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Foxy53

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Received a letter from my insurance company today advising me that my horse insurance is due for renewal at the end of this month, however they are no longer able to offer cover for my horse :mad:

After claiming for remedial farrier work to sort out collapsed heels after a major growth spurt (his growth - not mine :o) and then a bout of colic possibly brought on by prolonged box rest, they are no longer happy to insure my horse!

They are more than happy to continue my car, horsebox and other horse insurances; probably because I haven't needed to make a claim on these yet??:confused:

And I thought I purchased insurance for "peace of mind" - not with my present company - will be changing them pronto :cool:
 
I presume its a young horse as you said 'growth spurt' ? Its not as though you have had 10 claims sounds like you have only had 2 different claims. Good grief I had 5 major claims in 5 years some running together at certain times and still they carried on and premiums didn't go up too much either. That was South Essex

this is awful as really you should declare you have been refused insurance (I wouldn't tho)

which company is this with? PLEASE pm me if you prefer
 
Thanks for your replies and support - much appreciated:o

Insurance is with SEIB too - I've been with them for years; vehicles, horses - so much for my loyalty :mad:

He's 8 and has been no trouble 'til now (I've insured him with SEIB since he was 3) - my first claim for him. I have 2 others insured as well and (touch wood) haven't claimed for years - same for vehicles.

The claims I've made are what I'd call "run of the mill" - farrier and colic, I dread to think what they would have said (or paid) if it had been something obscure!

I'm going to try the NFU - used them years ago, can't remember why I changed.:confused:
 
Foxy53 said:
And I thought I purchased insurance for "peace of mind" - not with my present company - will be changing them pronto :cool:
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I sincerely hope you'll also be changing insurers for your other horses and car etc.

It won't help but hitting them in the wallet would make me feel better!
 
They are a law unto themselves !!! - I would move everything I have insured with them, no way would I give them another penny of my money.

Hope you do get alternative insurance and like someone else said you should really declare that he's had insurance declined, not sure what the consequences would be if you didn't declare and they found out, but it would probably lead to cancellation of insurance.
 
Years ago I came to renew horse insurance and was told they would no longer insure for vets bills. I had made no claims at all. On asking further it was because I had asked for a claim form (horse had an accident involving a car). Horse amazingly had no serious injury so I just didn't do anything about the claim. I should have let them know I wasn't pursuing a claim. Could anything similar to that have happened?
 
I To have had a renewal from SEIB today and am gob smacked. !!!!

Horse been insured with them from 4 years old now 12, never claimed until this year as had to declare he had been lame, vet reconed foot imbalance was causing him to be unsound. Horse was reshod, never been unsound since. No other treatment needed

Todays renewal up by over £100 per year, and have excluded any claims with or relating to front foot imbalance.

What does that mean? if he has any thing happen to his front legs they can say this is caused by front foot imbalance. If he does a tendon or ligament, if he trips the list is endless!!!
Is there any point paying out this huge amount of money when realy his front legs are no longer insured!!!

l have left a message to speak to my vet and have tried calling SEIB, but the lines were busy, will try them again in the morning.
 
This, is why I don't insure mine other than 3rd party! It has worked out cheaper to pay any small vets bills that come along. I can also PTS if I and vet feel they are suffering and not have to worry if the insurance would pay etc due to their stupid ass rules!

Pretty soon it will be too expensive to insure horses that are not competition or have no use to bring in an income. Then folk will complain at all the un insured horses on the roads.......then we will be FORCED to pay insurance or banned from taking horses out of yard/field or on transport.
 
This is really interesting - is SEIB feeling the credit crunch pinch? It looks like they are cutting back where they can and only insuring "dead certs" or customers who haven't claimed.

I thought my premium would go up but not be refused all together.

Soulfull - not quite sure about underwriters etc. Any advice?

I will call them tomorrow and update this thread.

Thanks all of you - feeling a bit low at the mment. :o
 
Spoken to SEIB today, they have told me to get my vet to write a letter stating that the horse has been completely sound since and then they will relook at the exclusion. l will also send them his x rays that show there to be no foot problems.

Seriously thinking of only insuring for liabity as l have 2 horses insured with them at nearly £1100 a year. (and a lorry).
 
I am having problems with NFU. My vet sent a letter to start loss of use claim 4 weeks ago. I have phoned once a week since asking if they can confirm receipt of letter and what happens next. Four times I have been told "the file is not where it should be which probably means something is happening but I will put a trace on it and phone you back tomorrow to confirm" - no phone calls followed, hence my weekly call to them. I rang again today and got the same response so I asked to make a complaint as it was not good enough and I think I have been very patient. The supervisor was to ring me back - you have guessed it - no phone call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am to start a campaign of daily harrassment!
 
RatzFatz said:
Spoken to SEIB today, they have told me to get my vet to write a letter stating that the horse has been completely sound since and then they will relook at the exclusion. l will also send them his x rays that show there to be no foot problems.

Seriously thinking of only insuring for liabity as l have 2 horses insured with them at nearly £1100 a year. (and a lorry).
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had similar with my horse with KBIS. on the vetting the vet noted he had a slight mediolateral foot imbalance and they stuck an exclusion on for anything related to foot imbalance - i assumed they could probably link just about anything to that! thankfully after a year we had sorted his feet out and i got the farrier to write them a letter and they lifted the exclusion but it's a nightmare.
 
I also was SEIB for several years, in that time I claimed once and because of the excess was paid £33 for a hoof abcess. The following year they excluded the whole leg. I now insure only 3rd party. I would perhaps insure a new horse for a year to see if its general health was good but otherwise I'ed rather pay off a big bill with a credit card.
 
To be fair, any insurance company is at the mercy of risk statistics that directly affect their underwriters. The whole lot is at the mercy of the recession and the fact that investors are now as rare as hen's teeth. If you had invested your savings in a relatively high risk/high return option (providing the financial backing for underwriters) you'd probably be very, very, very cagey about what level of financial risk you expected the underwriters to accept. That's what happened to the Lloyd's names a good few years back. Wealthy savers invested in a high return (= high risk, but they forgot that) venture but when there were several very costly accidents at sea that hit Lloyds very hard, the investors lost all their money and boy did they shout about it! Take care because you will have to declare that you have been refused insurance to any other company and if you don't, and you need to claim, you may find yourself not covered after all!
 
I had 30 horses at one time and to insure them cost £200 each per year. The excess was about £70 each and at the time most vet bills were around £60, for odds and sods, nothing serious, but unclaimable.

I reckon the value of the horses was about 2-3K each, so I could afford to shoot 2 horses a year (not that we ever did), for the price of insuring the lot.

I once had a horse injure itself in the field and when I called the vet, the first question was, 'is the horse insured?' so I told them not to bother and got someone else.
 
I really don't see why people are so surprised when this happens.

From an underwriters point of view you are no longer a good risk therefore they have chosen not to renew your policy. They are probably trying to improve their book of business in order to attract new syndicates. If your are paying £500 a year and they are paying out £1000's it doesn't make sense for them to continue your policy - nothing personal just business.

I deal in specialist non standard household insurance and daily have people complaining / asking why no one wants to insure them when they've had a claim every year for the last 3 years. Simple - insurers are not in it for charity purposes, they are a business like everything else, if something is loosing you money you stop doing it.

As another poster has already said, failure to declare that you have been refused insurance with invalidate any policy you take out so please make sure you are upfront with all future insurers.
 
How frustrating. Im with KBIS and had 2 claims on my horse in one year, i asked them about covering him and they said fine it would just mean more exclusions, I do recommend them they pay out so quickly. The only thing that was my mistake is their leisure cover wasnt overly comprehensive, Ive just covered my foal with them on their riding all singing all dancing policy, cost me £2 more than pet plan but pet plan policy (who my welsh is with ) always goes up every year, KBIS hasnt.



I do remember insuring my dogs with more than, we moved house and they tried to up the policy quite a bit, i asked why they said the area was at high risk for car theft!
 
It is certainly usual for insurance to exclude the area of the horse that has had a claim or even a known problem where no claim was made and always has been, nothing new there!

I have had my horses over the years insured with petplan and seib both excluded areas of claim in the future. Am insured with seib now and have been for 8 years had two major claims one of which was last year, both horses now have the area of claim excluded but only directly related to injury/operation and both even after renewal still insured.
 
I had a issue with NFU this yr they would only pay 50% of vet bills so I have changed got quotes from SEIB and KBIS and was completly upfront with my horses medical history and got a print out and sent it to both the list of exclusions from one really shocked me, they had excluded every reason she had ever seen a vet.
Seib, just excluded her foot which she had a accident on and sarcoids, which I completly accept as fair.

KBIS wanted to exclude sarcoids, the foot as well as any rash or skin condition (she had a heat rash once and cleared up without any treatment) and her tendons and ligaments on both front legs - in the history the vet explictly said there was no damage at all to the tendon (it was a mild kick injury)

So u can guess who I insured with!!!
 
Gluttonforpunishment - I insure for peace of mind and know the insurance companies do well out of me and other customers! :) What you are saying is that once you have claimed - forget it, no will touch you with a barge pole! :confused:

The message I'm receiving is; think very carefully before you claim otherwise you won't be able to make future claims because you won't have future insurance? Whats the point of having insurance in the first place then?

As you mention you are in the insurance business; surely you are doing yourself out of a job? :confused:
 
But what if you never have to claim, I have a couple who have only seen the vet for their once a year jab and tooth check. No no-claims discount. I think bonkers to exclude a whole limb for the eqivalant of stubbing your toe. There must be money in it, they spend enough on advertising
I think also the high vet fees option actuallly make the vet spend more money, after all they have to make a living.
 
Insurance is with SEIB
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Was with them for 8 years ! 4 horses no insurance claims at all !!! My Mare then fractured her cannon bone near front and broke her cannon on the off front in a freak accident - All in all the treatments/op's etc etc came to roughly £9500 ..... They paid a total of £680 !!!!!!! Had a clause to get out of EVERYTHING ... Not insured with them from that moment on ...... Like to say we insure for peace of mind . I had to get a bank loan in the end to settle the various bills.

for example - they transfered her to a specialist vets where she stayed for 3 month and had 2 opps there - when it came to them settling that section . I was informed that they didn't have to as she wasn't (as per the paperwork )refered to by the 'visiting vet ' ..... can you believe it and the other excuses are just as good !!!
 
We have all of ours with NFU and they have been amazing. In fact we had a huge claim for a fractured mandible and there was no exclusion at all on renewal
 
I started out with NFU, who were always more human, but more exxpensive, then I thought they were not as good, so moved to SEIB, who seemed good the first time I rang up, but the paperwork from them drove me mad. Every year a whole form to fill in - what colour is it (same as last year) what breed (same as last year) age (a year older than last year)etc etc. Then they excluded mud rash for one that had had it very mildly - I'd not claimed for a £90 bill. They even put exclusions on the ones that I only insured 3rd party and death (for sarcoids - death by sarcoid!) This year I moved to KBIS. So far so good, but I'm sure they'll turn out the same.

Its one thing saying they put your premiums up and exclude things when you've made a big claim, but I've never claimed in my life (more fool me I think now!) as I don't want to mess about with silly little claims.

We used to only insure most of them for 3rd party and death, and keep a pot of money aside for emergencies. I only insured the one I evented. Now I have two eventing, so I've insured them, but it really is silly money, and you wouldn't mind if you didn't feel so ripped off, or that the dice is loaded! I think I will return to 3rd party and death next time, as I'm not doing as much competing now.
 
NFU no longer issue specific exclusions but have a general clause which stipulates that any previous condition is no longer covered 12 months after the initial claim. It is a catch all. I had no difficulty with them until recent weeks - they have paid out a lot on my horse but to get over recent problems I had to contact them nationally and lodge a formal complaint. I have to say I got an apology and action within hours!
 
honetpot said:
I think also the high vet fees option actuallly make the vet spend more money, after all they have to make a living.
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Totally agree. When our horses weren't insured for vets bills the vets would ask if they were insured, we'd say no, so they'd then try "old fashioned" methods such as rest/ hosing etc on a leg, when our livery was sent for scans and physio on its leg for a similar injury. They went on and on treating this leg, worrying about things that probably wouldn't have ever surfaced as it was only a hack (would have understood if it was going to do Badminton). Our bill was about £150, the livery's insurance paid £3k... Probably makes me sound cruel, but we would have spent a couple of thousand of savings on the horse if it had needed anything else, my point is it didn't..
 
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