For those of you with veteran horses

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Rachaelpink

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My horse is 15, 16 in June and my insurance with NFU runs out as it is at the moment for good in January. Those of you who have veteran horses are they insured? If so who with and what kind of policy and roughly how much?

Looking around the only insurance company that covers injuries other than accidental or external is Petplan but their maximum veterinary fees is £1000, which is your paying say £400 a yr for insurance, is not worth it. Other companies will pay out up to £5000 (for additional fees) but only for accidents or injury so not sure if it's worth just putting money to ones side? What do you do?
 
Mine aren't insured for vet fees anymore, to be honest I put money away each month to the value of the insurance policy and insure myself etc via my gold VHS membership.

I found it far too expensive to insure them in the normal way now as the insurance would amount to far more than my three are worth.
 
I was with Petplan & they upped the premium to £517.00 per year.
The insurance is due in the next couple of weeks so i have decided i am not carrying on insuring her.
I have put a substantial amount of money in a separate bank account should i need it.

My horse is 21 years old.

XxX
 
I have always been with Scottish Equestrian for Kia since he was 12 (now 18) and they cover illness and injury up to 19 then after this its injury only :)

I am only £25 quid a month for option A which is county level showing dressage upt to ele i think and BE up to 100.

I just show and do prelim dressage with a little bit of jumping if I get the chance so this does me fine. Its up to 1500 death/theft/vets fee and a 140 excess. Also 500 of non vets fees

Nikki xxx
 
This is one reason why we stopped insuring. IME, very young and old animals are the ones who are most likely to need veterinary treatment, so insurance companies are making huge profits out of insuring horses which are unlikely (on the balance of probabilities) to need treatment costing more than the excess.
 
i insure with nfu, so you best sticking with them.
my mares nearly 18 and i pay bout £330 a year, that covers her for comps and travel , although after our latest injury were retired from our little outings, lol.
this year i have had to have 3 claims (weve had a bad year!) theyve paid out everytime, no issues, get £5000 vets fees per unrelated illness, wouldnt insure with ne1 else.
also have my box insurance with them.
 
I'm with KBIS (whom I can thoroughly recommend!) for my 19yr old TB and they pay 75%of vets fees + 100% for colic surgery, limit per incident £3000 with a £150 excess. This is for accidents, illness, injury, disease etc not just external accidental injury. They will cover him as above until his 20th birthday then between 21 & 25yrs the same cover will apply but limited to £1250 for all incidents during the policy year.
 
I am with SEIB and they have continued my vets cover but dropped its value. TBH I should cancel the vets cover now but that would take a bit of effort LOL! Unless your horse is particularly accident/illness prone then I would try to put the money aside to cover a big bill (operation) and not pay vets insurance.
I only have one insured for vets and it has been worth it tbh but she was a valuable horse. The others I just pay up as necessary. I guess it depends on whether you can afford to put money aside. I keep at least 5k in my savings all the time for the horses. If you dont have that sort of money then you do need insurance.

I think it is easier to reinsure an oldie with your current company so worth giving NFU a ring. They may not take on older horses but may be willing to insure for vets as you are an existing customer. Worth checking.
 
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I'm with petplan for both of mine, 16yrs old and 20yrs old respectively. They're fully insured for illness and injury up to £5000 vets fees per incident. My 16yr old is insured for mainly leisure and local comps whereas my 20yr old is insured to compete BSJA Foxhunter and above. They will cover both of them for illness and injury until they're 25 so I have a few years to shop around and see whether it'll be worth insuring them for vets fees after this age or not.
 
I have my 20 year old with Petplan and I have full cover up to £5000 vets fees. I think if you take out insurance with them before your horse is a certain age (I think it is age 18) you can have full cover up to the age of 25. Only after this does it revert to the veteran plan. Mine only costs £23 per month, but that is because I only insure his value at £300. I need the vets fees cover more than anything!
 
Pet Plan will insure up to 25 with 5k vet fees, if you insure before the horse is 19 I think. B

But since they changed underwriter they are VERY strict about when they will pay out- my 19yo was insured with them, had a viral chest infection last spring which cost less than my excess, so I didn't bother to claim, insurance renewed automatically, then she had a bacterial chest infection this spring, which needed scoping and various treatments- they wouldn't pay out because I had 'failed to inform them at renewal' that she'd been seen in the previous spring :-(

Vet wrote to them saying it was totally unconnected, but they still refused to pay. I asked if they would have paid if I'd declared the previous illness, and they admitted that they wouldn't as they'd have immediately excluded her respiratory system.

Basically you have to tell them EVERY time your horse sees the vet, no matter how minor- and they will then exclude that area.

I figured out that my mare would have both eyes, all four legs, her heart, lungs and respiratory system and skin excluded... and as I woudn't put her through colic surgery anyway at her age frankly I wasn't prepared to pay £40 a month to insure her ears and tail!!

Now have third party cover with BHS gold membership and put aside money to cover vet bills... and keep a credit card with LOTS of space on it for big emergencies!!
 
Both my ponies are insured third party only as a BHS Gold member, I think £60 a year for both. They are 18 and nearly 20 years old; Touch wood, neither has ever been injured in 9 years so its been good for me! :D
 
We've got two 35yr olds, and they're not insured, they are however covered with public liability (i think thats the one!) with BHS membership (think its BHS! They're mothers horses!)!
 
Thanks for the replies, gives me some food for thought. Not entirely sure what I'm going to do yet but it has given me more options than I was aware of x
 
Another vote for KBIS, we have the same or a similar policy to ex-racers for our oldie. Petplan really put me off when I spoke to them about their veteran policy. They were about the same price as KBIS, but don't cover illnesses, only injury.

Also they were very cagey about what injuries they would actually cover; if they deem that the injury is in anyway linked to another condition they won't pay out. I asked them what would happen if my horse say, pulled a tendon, they said that if there was even a hint of arthritis or stiffness in that leg, then they would deem it to be linked to this, so no payout. That's just an example, but seems a bit off to me!
 
Im with KBIS, they are vey good. But with my mare i only insure her for theft/death/third party.
She has had a tendon injusry before so one leg wouldnt be insured. Re vets bills, i put money away incase.
I paid £55 for one year for her.
 
Liath said:
Basically you have to tell them EVERY time your horse sees the vet, no matter how minor- and they will then exclude that area.
Click to expand...

Absolute rubbish I am afraid.

I claimed for my 18 year old mare this summer.

She had ideopathic lameness of a forelimb - same on the other one a few years previously.

I've had her 10 years and shes been insured with PetPlan and Bankers Equine Direct before that (Petplan bought Bankers out).

I have never made a single claim, but my mare had 8 pages of veterinary history (as printed by the vets accounts department).

Petplan paid my claim direct to the vets within 6 weeks of me sending the claim.

She has no exclusions on her record as I specifically requested I was sent a new policy document stating any exlusions after the claim.
 
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