Does anyone NOT insure their horse?

Hippona

Hippona

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I am waiting to see if insurance will pay out after the death of my horse.....I chose to have him PTS instead of subjecting him to emergency major abdominal surgery - he was very ill and getting on in years and me and the vet thought it was in his best interests. However, as surgery was available and I declined it.....theres a question mark as to whether they will pay. Ho-hum.

Anywhoo.....I was considering doing this, and I wondered if anyone else does the same.

1) Join BHS as a gold member and get Public liability/3rd party cover for all 3 horses.
2) Insure the horses for high-excess vets bills ( over £500) and theft only.

I was thinking this would keep costs down and yet still cover me for the essentials?

Or just not bothering and putting the money into an account for emergencies?

What do you reckon?
 
2 are but wondering why at the moment as one is excluded for virtually everything and one has a huge excess yet costs me £100 per month.also recently removed loss of use for my old horse who now is lame possibly longterm.i know if i have her pts they will not pay.minature not insured but also thinking of joining bhs for 3rd party.
 
I will probably get shot down in flames but I do not insure my pony.
I used to but then I read all the exclutions and desided they probably wouldn't pay out anyway :( I didn't insure Lucy as she was to old and would have only been covered for visable external injury and in the end she had a horrable illness and would not have been covered so I would have still had to pay the entire bill myself as well as paying insurance :(.
This has been discussed at length but I don't have the spare money to pay for insurance anyway. I do have public liability through various organisations I belong to.
To be honest if I did have the money I would probably save it up myself then i would spend it on who ever needed it (the dog or the pony).

Can I just say my animals get top class care and if I needed to find the money for any vetenary treatment I would find it from somewhere. Just like I have done over the last year and continu to do so for Lucys enormous bill :(

*runs away to hide from the onslort of "If you can't afford insurance you shouldn't have a horse*
 
My main two are fully insured costing around 50 per month, i have them both insure for only £1000 pounds but this gives me vets fees etc but the project two are not unfortunatley if anything serious happened in the short time i have them i would have to fund that my self.
 
After being stung 3 times with insurance companies not paying out, I have now become a BHS gold member and am putting my 'would be' insurance money into a separate account. At least I know that it is there for a rainy day then. Also, it helps as my vets are very good and would set up a payment scheme for me, should I be landed with a big vet bill! I think i have kept them in business!! x
 
None off mine are insured and iv never insured any for over 30 yrs. I'm with the bhs gold membership for 3rd party. I put back into a saving account each month and I'm £££ in. Iv been lucky with vet bills and my highest one was £900 when my mare lost her foal. Iv seen to many people ripped off by insurance and even my vet said to me " you would be better off putting into a savings account" which I now do.
 
I'm thinking that you pay your premiums, and when it comes down to it, you have to jump through hoops and hope the wind is in the right direction to get paid out.

I chose the PTS option for my horse knowing they probably wouldn't pay out- I was pee'd off, not for ther money but because I felt it could have potentially coloured my judgement as to what option to take. In the end I though sod it- do whats best and if they don't pay- bugger 'em.

I have thought about joining BHS for ages but just not got around to it. one of the horses is OH's and she isn't insured -so she would be covered 3rd party as well as my other 2.
 
The only insurance you really should not discard is 3rd party liability.

At the moment if there is an accident which involves your horse, even if you were not there at the time and even if it was entirely the other person's fault, you personally could be liable for significant damages. This is what the law calls strict liability. There is little or no consideration of your ability to pay. This means that if there is an accident which was in no way your, or the horse's, fault; possibly even when you were not there, you could end up loosing everything you own, including the horse. Not only in paying damages, but you would also have to pay the legal costs for the other side which can be massive!

You can get 3rd party liability through BHS membership which is probably the cheapest way to do it.

Insurance for vets bills, loss of use etc is entirely a personal choice.
 
None of mine are insured...

I have public liability on my house insurance and have a savings account for vets fee's.

I have 6 equines and am not interested in replacing any of them. None will be put through any major hospitalisation or surgery. I have found that if you tell the vet you are not insured they are very honest with you in regards to what is necessary to treat your horse.

When my mare was ill a couple of years back, she was saved from days of invasive tests which would have been fruitless. She was dying but I know if she had been insured that her 4 day illness would have been longer had she been hospitalised.
 
Me.

I have BHS gold membership.

I put a little by.

There a few vet procedures i wouldn't put my ponies through, and not having ins, there isn't a "pressure" from the vet to "try this, try that"

I personally wouldn't have a pony on long term pain relief.

And i certainly wouldn't go down the colic surgery route either.
 
It's entirely down to personal choice whether you insure a horse for vets bills, death etc etc so it is difficult to advise as everyone's circumstances are different.

However, everyone should make sure they are suitably covered for public liability as this is where potentially the largest claims are. So, whether you have it through your house insurance or via organisations like the BHS etc make sure you have it somewhere! PL claims can run into hundreds and thousands of pounds where as vets bills are highly unlikely to get to that sort of amount and people can generally find a few thousand if they really need/want it. Not so if you are looking at a claim against you for £500K upwards if your horse has escaped and caused an accident.
 
LauraWheeler said:
I will probably get shot down in flames but I do not insure my pony.
I used to but then I read all the exclutions and desided they probably wouldn't pay out anyway :( I didn't insure Lucy as she was to old and would have only been covered for visable external injury and in the end she had a horrable illness and would not have been covered so I would have still had to pay the entire bill myself as well as paying insurance :(.
This has been discussed at length but I don't have the spare money to pay for insurance anyway. I do have public liability through various organisations I belong to.
To be honest if I did have the money I would probably save it up myself then i would spend it on who ever needed it (the dog or the pony).

Can I just say my animals get top class care and if I needed to find the money for any vetenary treatment I would find it from somewhere. Just like I have done over the last year and continu to do so for Lucys enormous bill :(

*runs away to hide from the onslort of "If you can't afford insurance you shouldn't have a horse*
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Oh bless you! I dont think you're on your own:) Insurance is expensive and IMO up to the individual how they deal with any bills that may arise, as long as horses best interests at heart including PTS if most logical. I keep my 31yo insured as it costs me £10.93 a month! Cant grumble - that covers me and tack too - even though I could knock 'me' on the head as he's retired, thats external injury and when his day comes I doubt it will be from an injury. My 6yo is insured at around £45 a month for all the usuals. My dogs are insured too and thankfully so, my Setter became gravely ill with menigitis and bloat/torsion and has cost around 10k - now sleeping peacefully upside down on my settee - again:D 6k of that was covered the rest was overtime:D The only thing I am quite opinionated on is liabilty insurance if riding on roads, a car driver legally has to be insured, so should horse riders.
 
poppymoo said:
I chose the PTS option for my horse knowing they probably wouldn't pay out- I was pee'd off, not for ther money but because I felt it could have potentially coloured my judgement as to what option to take. In the end I though sod it- do whats best and if they don't pay- bugger 'em.
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Good on you for putting the horse first.
I once knew a woman who had a youngester who was kicked in the field. When it didn't come right after afew weeks I told her she should have it put down. Instead it was put through alot of tests and un necessary painfull procedures. This went on for months then in the end they came to the conclution it should have been put down in the first place. :( The poor horse was put through all that just because it was insured. :(:( I would always put my horses first so insurance would probably be a wast of money for me.
 
We insure the horse and both our dogs, not much change out of £100 a month..

BUT, our lab suffered near fatal kidney failure in April, was hospitalised for quite a while, round the clock care, the lot - without insurance we would have been snookered.

My last horse had an exclusion whacked on him for skin problems, which was the only thing he ever got :rolleyes: Gone are the days of the continuous policies for a lifetime - these one year policies are a joke.

Anyhoos, I couldn't have my horse uninsured, in case something did happen.

sm x
 
I am just waiting to see if the insurance pay out for my mare who was pts on Friday. I have 2 shetlands who are not insured. The 10 yo and 18yo are but we are considering having a credit card for vet fees only and putting the £140 we were paying into a savings account to cover the vets fees. We have 3rd party through BHS
 
Well Seren was insured for years, I went to change to a more reputable company, did it online, did not give it any more thought, thought it has all worked, but it hadn't.
Seren then typically went very wrong, infected uterus, official diagnosis of rotation in her front right foot. She is 20yrs old now and they would not insure her for what would potentially cause her trouble or even death, so instead I am just trying to put some away each month. I know my family would help me out if a situation arose where I needed to borrow money for her treatment, they have done this before bless them.

If I purchased another young,fit and healthy horse in time, I think I would insure it. However, I may just put money away each month, I just don't know, and until I am in that position I will not give it any more thought.
 
I agree that 3rd party should be compularary ( spelling)
I know plenty who haven't got a 3rd party at all.
I also wouldn't put my horse through major ops and would rather PTS.
 
Mine isn't insured. Partly because of her temperament - anything costing thousands would probably involve box rest which she wouldn't cope with, so she'd be PTS. Partly because of her age - can you even GET insurance for 29 year olds who have already had everything wrong with them?? And partly down to personal belief - I do not believe in saving the animal at all costs, which I feel vets and owners can be under pressure to do in order to claim insurance, I prefer to make that decision based purely on what is best for the animal and nothing else.

I am a BHS Gold member, as is my OH, so we're insured for 3rd party liability.
 
All of our animals are insured (3 horses, 1 dog).

My view on it is, that if you have relatively easy access (by that I mean credit card, loan, cash, savings...) to £5000 or more, then I wouldn't insure, but would put the money away into a bank account.

We insure because I'm a uni student, my OH is a graduate trainee, and we couldn't do the best by our animals.

For example, last year: Mare had ks. £5000. Mare had stomach ulcers. £4000. Dog had stomach op. £4000. Now, even the richest of people would probably struggle to find £13000 in one year! And it would have meant we had to have our animals PTS, as we just could NOT have found the money.

Those of you who have read my posts in AAD wil know that, because our insurance limit isn't high enough, we've had to choose the "lesser" surgery for my beautiful dog requiring surgery for hip dysplasia. However, she has the option of surgery rather than PTS because we're insured.

For those of you wondering whether they'll pay out, insure with better companies! We insure with NFU and so long as you keep them in the loop, they ALWAYS pay out.
 
Should add that I also have private rider insurance - i.e. if something happened to me whilst riding any horse I would be covered for private medical treatment/time off work.
 
One handy thing to note...if you think that your horse has an exclusion on his / her policy that shouldnt be there, have a word with your vet to put a few words in a letter for you, and then forward it onto the insurance company to dispute the exclusion. I have done this twice now, and each time the insurance company has taken the exclusion off the policy!

Also...I had a discount on the BHS membership as I joined at Burghley... think it was £47. Always worth asking at events!
 
I have public liabilty only. here in Italy, insuring horses for anything else is non existent! If one of mine needs an op due to colic, it will cost me in excess of £9,000 (euro) and it comes out of my pocket only. My old boy had a 10 day stay in a clinic due to pneumonia-it cost me £2'000 then there was the home visits and medicines. Im lucky in that our vet is also a friend plus my ex boss is one of the top vets here in Italy...otherwise....????
I now have to think with my head instead of my heart and have to balance the financial aspect with the gravity of the situation.
 
I am looking to buy a horse and have been considering this.

I have heard so many stories about how hard it is to get insurance companies to pay out and all of the exclusions etc. My friend had her horse for general all rounding etc...she mentioned to the vet she had started doing some low level endurance (talking to vet whilst horse was in therapy for some lameness and muscle wastage), the vet wrote it down and subsequently insurance wouldn't pay out nearly £2000 in treatment as he was insured as a general riding horse and not an endurance horse....so now she just puts some money away into savings.

Would people recommend BHS public liability, 3rd party etc and to put away savings for vets? Otherwise I think I will be insuring with NFU.

I don't insure my cats or dog ( I can't!! they all have something that insurance companies won't insure them for), if they need the vets then we can afford it, however if they needed any huge serious operations and were in a lot pain and would be in some discomfort for the rest of their life, they would be pts.
 
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heather_bambi said:
I am looking to buy a horse and have been considering this.

I have heard so many stories about how hard it is to get insurance companies to pay out and all of the exclusions etc. My friend had her horse for general all rounding etc...she mentioned to the vet she had started doing some low level endurance (talking to vet whilst horse was in therapy for some lameness and muscle wastage), the vet wrote it down and subsequently insurance wouldn't pay out nearly £2000 in treatment as he was insured as a general riding horse and not an endurance horse....so now she just puts some money away into savings.

Would people recommend BHS public liability, 3rd party etc and to put away savings for vets? I would rather not have my horse have to undergo any huge operations...which is all I can see needing the insurance for!

I don't insure my cats or dog ( I can't!! they all have something that insurance companies won't insure them for), if they need the vets then we can afford it, however if they needed any serious operations and were in a lot pain, they would be pts.
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I had the same thing with the wording 'endurance riding' - my horse was diagnosed with a slight lameness whilst attempting to take part in a pleasure ride held by Endurance GB. My insurance company said that they weren't going to pay out, because it was an endurance ride! I had a dispute with them and wrote them a very lengthy letter saying that its a pleasure ride and not for points or money, and they agreed to meet me half way with the payout...better than a poke in the eye!
Thats the thing about insurance, its all about the wording!!
 
Both my horses (mares) were insured and they both maxed out a £5000 claim each in the space of 2 years.

Treacle (9yo) was insured for £12000 and vets fees (not loss of use) and cost £64 a month. Empy (10yo) was insured for £6000 and vets fees (not loss of use) and cost £34 a month. I had Treacle 2 years and the insurance cost me £1536; Empy for 5 years and cost £2040 totalling £3567 spent on Insuring the both of them since we bought them. If I had saved all this money it wouldn't even had covered one of their claims so there is no way on earth I wouldn't insure as I simply cannot afford to pay £5000 twice to cover vets fees.

We ended up losing for Treacle and Empy in July and August this year, we chose to have them PTS due to their incurable injuries and post-op problems, so the insurance company didn't pay out. It seems ridiculous that if they brake a leg in the field you get the money, but if you have to have them PTS due to their condition you get nothing.... but that's insurance for you!
 
Jess1 said:
Both my horses (mares) were insured and they both maxed out a £5000 claim each in the space of 2 years.

Treacle (9yo) was insured for £12000 and vets fees (not loss of use) and cost £64 a month. Empy (10yo) was insured for £6000 and vets fees (not loss of use) and cost £34 a month. I had Treacle 2 years and the insurance cost me £1536; Empy for 5 years and cost £2040 totalling £3567 spent on Insuring the both of them since we bought them. If I had saved all this money it wouldn't even had covered one of their claims so there is no way on earth I wouldn't insure as I simply cannot afford to pay £5000 twice to cover vets fees.

We ended up losing for Treacle and Empy in July and August this year, we chose to have them PTS due to their incurable injuries and post-op problems, so the insurance company didn't pay out. It seems ridiculous that if they brake a leg in the field you get the money, but if you have to have them PTS due to their condition you get nothing.... but that's insurance for you!
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It makes you wonder how we all survived before all of this insurance nonsense!
Living in the land of 'no insurance', I am gob smacked at some of the posts here on HandH. It seems that horses are taken to clinics at the drop of a hat (on vets advice) and manymany tests , x-rays are done for things that used to be 'left well alone' and turn him out for a month and he'll get better'. I honestly believe that vets are taking the pzz and the monthly statements in the bank are swelling up due to the insurance madness. It cant last.
 
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