Do you have horse insurance or just BHS membership?

I have BHS Gold membership and the horses are insured for death, theft and LOU.
Vets bills I pay as and when.
IME insurance will try and wiggle out of paying out, will exclude anything and everything and dictates your course of action.
Not worth it IMO.
 
crystalclear said:
Is that all insurers it applies to when a horse is 16 or over? What is it you pay for your youngster for £7 per month?
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yeh all insurers only cover external after 16 except if your with petplan form about 14 they will cover to either 18 or 19 but you have to have been with them before hand!

I've saved £7 on the youngsters I don't pay £7 haha! hes still at grass and covered for full vet fees etc its £16 a month now! with petplan
 
Ahh I see sorry I was getting confused! Ha I remember reading somewhere that the BHS insurance is only valid if its the only insurance you have...not sure if that's per horse or just in general.
 
Hippona said:
I have BHS Gold membership and the horses are insured for death, theft and LOU.
Vets bills I pay as and when.
IME insurance will try and wiggle out of paying out, will exclude anything and everything and dictates your course of action.
Not worth it IMO.
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So you have the BHS insurance and extra cover for death/theft etc? See my post above, I could be wrong but pretty sure the BHS only covers if its the only insurance (I am easily confused!)

I keep hearing this about insurance companies that they try and not pay if possible, it's what's putting me off it and leaning towards the BHS one!
 
I don't think that could be the case! it might be the case for the public liability part of the insurance, but they can't refuse to cover you if you have your horse insured for illness and the BHS cover doesn't include that!

so if you have your horse insured just make sure you removed public and personal liability then you should be fine!
 
BHS third party liabilty cover is a cover of 'last resort', so if you have third party cover on say you vet's fees policy or your home insurance the BHS will require you to claim through that company for any third party claim.

As far as I'm aware BHS don't cover vets fees so OP be clear about what you want insured and what you personally want to take a risk on.

Unless you have savings of c.£5k (or access to a credit card an a method to pay it off) then insurance for vets fees sould be seriously considered. My boy had a minor kick in the field on a joint and as the joint was open the op and follow up cost £3,500, the alternative was PTS and he recovered 110% wining SJ leagues the following winter. It's not just the big colic surgeries that can cost a fortune

Insurance for third party claims is absolutely essential for everyone owning an animal of any kind
 
I have both at the moment but come renewal in March I am definately stopping older boy and am debating about youngster.
I would never put a horse through colic surgery or pinning of broken limbs and tbh if the cost of anything else was thousands I would pts. Youngster is now excluded any skeletal problems, which pretty much rrules out everything except colic!! (Not quite I realise).
I am going with WHW though, not BHS, for my public liability.
 
I have BHS cover and the NFU cover the extra liability of the land and staff.
But I never insure the horses I just pay the bills
When something goes wrong it's between me and the horse no clock ticking no rush to do this that and the other I can try turnout for six months and then see if I chose I think insurance can cause over intervention for things that may respond better to time and rest.
 
This is making more sense, thank you. Just need to be clear as you say. So I could take out the BHS for the public liability and then have a different cover for vets fees etc. I'm thinking this may work out cheaper but need to find out. Of course, it's not all about things being cheaper but it does help :)
 
crystalclear said:
This is making more sense, thank you. Just need to be clear as you say. So I could take out the BHS for the public liability and then have a different cover for vets fees etc. I'm thinking this may work out cheaper but need to find out. Of course, it's not all about things being cheaper but it does help :)
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If you only have one horse I don't think it will save you that much a month but my insurance only covered for £3million of public liability but BHS covers £10million, so its better in that respect!! Plus you get the free legal advice if you ever need it!

I would defo make sure you have full vet fees as my youngster got kicked on the hock and was on steroids for 2/3 months and at the time I didn't have vet fees, so had to pay out for the vet treatment! vets wanted to scan but I couldn't afford it, where as he could have had better treatment if he'd have been insured!
 
I have three horses and a pony all fully insured so hoping it may make a saving, just depends on the cost etc - Interetesting about the amount of the liability, thank you, I'll be checking it out for sure
 
Pearlsasinger said:
As a multiple horse owner, and having paid out thousands in the past in premiums but not having had to claim (fortunately) or not being able to claim because of an exclusion, now I just have BHS Gold membership.
I am in a position to be able to pay any vet bills that we are likely to incur though. I shall not be putting any of our horses through invasive surgery followed by prolonged box rest.
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This ^. We have five and the combined insurance would be ridiculous. I just put some money into a separate account each month instead.
 
I've recently found out that with BHS public liability insurance that if you have a claim and are found negligent you have to pay a £1000 excess!! Didn't know that, on my 'usual' insurance it's £100
 
People might like to know that BD associate membership will give you third party cover cheaper than BHS and you don't have to be a dressage rider to join as an associate. Might help if you need to save some pennies, through of course BHS does some good charity work.
 
crystalclear said:
I've recently found out that with BHS public liability insurance that if you have a claim and are found negligent you have to pay a £1000 excess!! Didn't know that, on my 'usual' insurance it's £100
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To clarify, this isn't correct. There is no excess at all on the policy provided as a Gold membership benefit - and we understand this is pretty much unique! The insurance benefits are provided by SEIB, and key facts and T&Cs are available at https://www.bhs.org.uk/membership/types-of-memberships/gold-membership.

crystalclear, there's unfortunately obviously been some confusion and it would be great to clear it up at the source if possible. If you're able to, please let us know where you've heard this and/or pass on the happy news above!
 
Wow what great news! Thank you for your reply. I will PM you with info where I heard the news. So no excess at all even if you're found to be neglegent with the public liability? Fantastic! Good to hear straight from the horses mouth :) so are there any companies who cover vets fees only, and if so who?
 
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Thanks, we'll look out for your PM.

Public liability insurance exists to cover all or some of your costs and damages if someone takes legal action against you as a result of an incident and you are found to have been negligent. As for vets fees, we'd recommend contacting a broker such as SEIB to discuss your requirements; as we're not an insurance company ourselves, we're afraid we can't advise on the specifics of what each company provides.
 
That's ok I completely understand that. Thank you for clearing matters up, much appreciated. As long as I know there's no excess at all! I will phone the broker tomorrow as you suggest, thank you. In the mean time, perhaps there are others on the board who have vets fees only and I so I wonder who or if its possible...horse and hound forum is fab, isn't it :)
 
crystalclear said:
That's ok I completely understand that. Thank you for clearing matters up, much appreciated. As long as I know there's no excess at all! I will phone the broker tomorrow as you suggest, thank you. In the mean time, perhaps there are others on the board who have vets fees only and I so I wonder who or if its possible...horse and hound forum is fab, isn't it :)
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You're most welcome. We hope you find something to suit.
 
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