E&L

buddy's mummy

buddy's mummy

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Hi has anybody had any large claims with E&L?
Buds will need bone scan etc to determine what is wrong with him.
anybody had any experience? also did anyone have to pay a percentage of diagnostic work?
 
I had two claims in the 15+ years I had my horses insured with E&L. First one for around £1200, most of which was diagnostic (suspensory ligament desmitis), took E&L more than 6 months to settle the claim.
Second claim a year or so later (same horse, totally unrelated condition), just under £1000, again almost all diagnostic. E&L tried every excuse in the book to wriggle out of settling, after months of letters and phone calls I eventually went to the ombudsman and lo and behold, the cheque arrived within days.
So the very best of British to you!
 
Buddy'sMum said:
I had two claims in the 15+ years I had my horses insured with E&L. First one for around £1200, most of which was diagnostic (suspensory ligament desmitis), took E&L more than 6 months to settle the claim.
Second claim a year or so later (same horse, totally unrelated condition), just under £1000, again almost all diagnostic. E&L tried every excuse in the book to wriggle out of settling, after months of letters and phone calls I eventually went to the ombudsman and lo and behold, the cheque arrived within days.
So the very best of British to you!
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Well done for getting your claim settled, most don't. They company is dreadful. Friend had a an awful accident years ago, horse slipped on a bridge and got stuck. Had to be pts on the bridge. E&L reckoned it was rider error and refused to pay.
 
ooooh right! ok not good!! well I work in insurance services so know how it all works bit different to equine insurance but the managers do have the say...
 
AdorableAlice said:
Well done for getting your claim settled, most don't. They company is dreadful. Friend had a an awful accident years ago, horse slipped on a bridge and got stuck. Had to be pts on the bridge. E&L reckoned it was rider error and refused to pay.
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Oh how awful! :-(

They are the WORST to deal with but I was absolutely determined not to let them get away with it.
 
I have only ever had good dealings with them. Last year they paid out a huge claim for hind suspensory injury including all diagnostics and stem cell treatment. Year before the same for a front tendon. Their customer service and reliability has got so much better in the last 3-4 years IMO
 
Doesdressage1 said:
I have only ever had good dealings with them. Last year they paid out a huge claim for hind suspensory injury including all diagnostics and stem cell treatment. Year before the same for a front tendon. Their customer service and reliability has got so much better in the last 3-4 years IMO
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hope then!! do you have to pay a percentage of the claim or is it a fixed excess?
 
I would say check with the vet before doing anything if it may be costly as some vet practices will not claim directly from the insurer if it is E&L. So if you did have any work done you may have to pay the vet direct and claim from insurance yourself. I know this from working for one of the other large equine insurers in the claims dept and we used to see quite a few footers on the invoices saying any claims for E&L have to be paid by the client, the vet will not claim it back.

Some companies vary in what they will pay for for diagnostics. Some will pay all whereas some a percentage. I would check T&C's and if in doubt call them!
 
my vets have already submitted a claim to them. vets will deal direct with E&L. although cos it was a new horse/ new policy/new vets I had to pay first consultation fee to vet and vet claiming it back off ins and using part of the first consultation money as the excess if you understand. vets have said they are waiting for insurance to accept liability for claim before we go ahead and arrange further diagnostics, bone scans etc.
 
buddy's mummy said:
hope then!! do you have to pay a percentage of the claim or is it a fixed excess?
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Your policy details will tell you that. I am not with E&L (with Amtrust) but I pay more to have a fixed excess of £135 instead of their cheaper option of paying the first 17% (I think). Best bet is to dig out your policy booklet and certificate.

My vet's office always asks you who you are insured with and if you are E&L, they make you pay up front and won't claim from the insurer. Thankfully they are happy to claim back fees directly from my insurer. I did have some issues a couple of years ago getting the final part of an existing claim settled, but when I tried to pay the vet's office for it myself, they told me not to as they knew they would always get paid by my insurer eventually.
 
A friend of mine managed to claim almost £5,000 from E&L for an injury her horse got in the field.

I have only heard bad things about them until then, so was shocked that they paid up no questions asked.
 
the only thing I have to deal with is that Buds went lame 1 week after the 2 week waiting period when the policy started!! so they may query that it could have been pre existing?! thats vets main concern but vet is nice and if it is something that he had before then vet will word it accordingly he says! but I bought him sound with no issues and insured him accordingly.
 
Elbie said:
Hmm...so he's going to lie? That's called insurance fraud and you can get your policy voided if they find out!
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no its not really as I bought the horse and insured him in good faith with no issues. So no the vet wont lie. he will just help me as he advised me to take horse back..but I dont want to i'd rather get him fixed or at least know how to manage whatever he has going on.
 
I thought you meant the vet was going to lie and say the injury only just happened, even if he thinks it happened within th first 14 days of policy!

To be fair, they probably will argue it. I would send them a vet history to show the vet hasn't treated your horse for this condition before. Just remember - they need to be able to prove it. They can't just say it probably happened. If they refuse to accept the claim on that basis they wouldn't have a leg to stand really!

I still work in insurance. You can't reject things on an assumption. It has to be fact.
 
buddy's mummy said:
the only thing I have to deal with is that Buds went lame 1 week after the 2 week waiting period when the policy started!! so they may query that it could have been pre existing?! thats vets main concern but vet is nice and if it is something that he had before then vet will word it accordingly he says! but I bought him sound with no issues and insured him accordingly.
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Working in insurance I really think you ought know better than that!!

I claimed £5.5K from E&L a few years ago which was paid promptly and they were very helpful.
 
I also work in insurance - not equine though.
he is a new horse elbie - I bought him 3 weeks before I noticed any lameness so he was only one week out of the waiting period. we dont know what the condition is. horse is on a bute trial at present. but next is a bone scan...but waiting on insurance to accept initial claim of consultation and bute etc, what I am worried about elbie is that he has scans and he has a long term condition like say navicular or the like and the insurance say oh well that happened ages ago..it was there when you bought him. where do I go from there? bought him from private seller. and dont want to go down the road of returning him plus be left with a big vet bill..can you see where I am coming from?
 
buddy's mummy said:
whats that supposed to mean? I bought horse in good faith with no issues at the time, he went lame 3 weeks after I bought him.
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I read the previous post to mean that your vet was prepared to help you bend the truth. Depending on the nature of what is wrong I think you will struggle with it being both a new horse and a new policy, to prove that it isn't pre existing.
 
I had my old horse insured a good few years ago now. I had a large vet claim over £3000 an then had a loss of use claim worth over £5000. It was a faily straight forward claim but it was a long hard struggle to get all the money out of them think it was over a year down the line they finally paid all my vets fee's and took another 6 months to agree my LOU, I had to bully them on the phone and e-mail every day until I got them to agree to everything. It worked out fine in the end but I will never insure with them again.
 
Years ago my horse had an argument with a car and the car came off worse! E&L paid out OK. But I've been insured with NFU for about 15 years now. They've had their moments but seem to have improved again recently.

I think they outsourced for a while and pay out was very slow, but my last claim was much improved.
 
Nine years ago E&L paid out fine for two colic surgeries my horse had. But I heard about their reputation afterwards, thought I'd just fluked it and so changed to KBIS then Petplan who I've been with ever since.
 
Good luck. But I doubt you'll get a penny due to the time frame involved. Whether you bought the horse in good faith or not has no bearing on the matter (obviously).
 
I am with NFU, so different set up, but my boy went lame and my vet said that until insurers insist on vettings and x rays before insuring any horse for vet fees (which he thinks may well happen one day) that they set themselves up to fail on proving whether or not a condition was pre existing. My claim was 6 months after purchase though - a week after the 14 day exclusion and I think E & L will think you are the sort of client they (generally) deserve!
 
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