injuries in uninsured horses

diggerbez

diggerbez

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Hypothetical question time...If you had an uninsured horse that then went lame with a serious injury (say ligament/tendon or something) what would you do? Treat regardless and try to find the money later? Try to treat on the cheap? or have horse PTS? just wondering what experiences you have had?
 
I don't have any of mine insured, basically I have the time will heal or not option. Sorry if thats no help. I dothink that sometimes because horses have huge amounts of cover people often miss the bigger picture. My horses are with me until they are in pain that can not be treated or until I can't keep them, then they will be PTS, I would rather PTS than pass quirky horses on.
ETA I do always get a vets opinion if required, that gives us options and diagnosis to work with!
 
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personally, I go with the motto "only don't insure if you can afford not to".... in other words, I'd still pay for the best treatment available.... but then again my neds are my pets as well as being my competition partners and maybe you need to take a different view if you have to run things as a business?
 
Can't really say as all my pets have been insured... But if I was in this situation I would probably ask family/friends for loan but wouldn't dream of trying to do it on the cheap. Would then get horse insured ASAP
 
Kelpie said:
personally, I go with the motto "only don't insure if you can afford not to".... in other words, I'd still pay for the best treatment available.... but then again my neds are my pets as well as being my competition partners and maybe you need to take a different view if you have to run things as a business?
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yes i would normally take the same view...but there are a lot of people with horses with exclusions on their policies..what if there is an injury to an excluded leg or a colic when colic is excluded or whatever...what would you do then? :)
 
A colic exclusion would be the biggest worry for me, as it can happen without warning to any horse, young or old, happy hacker or international competition horse.

Fiona
 
Sounds silly, with the cost of keeping horse etc but i can't afford to insure mine. I am faced at the minute with a gigantic vet bill as she has strained her check ligament. I have the money to spend but not on pointless insurance policies that exclude this that and the other, with large excesses and sometimes difficulty paying out.
 
As I have found out insurance is completely useless. Why I'm still paying God only knows! At least when they aren't insured you know where you stand straight away!!

Anyway... whether I choose treatment or not would be down to the prognosis for the individual horse, nothing to do with insurance etc.
 
lfield said:
As I have found out insurance is completely useless. Why I'm still paying God only knows! At least when they aren't insured you know where you stand straight away!!

Anyway... whether I choose treatment or not would be down to the prognosis for the individual horse, nothing to do with insurance etc.
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My viewpoint exactly! Once you've claimed for something it is then excluded which basically means you are penalised each time you claim.
 
fatarse2 said:
My viewpoint exactly! Once you've claimed for something it is then excluded which basically means you are penalised each time you claim.
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I ran up a bill of almost £5k within the first 3 months of having the horse...would the insurance pay out even though it was a life or death situation - would they heck! I'm now (2 months on) running up another massive bill and I'm just waiting for them to try and link this to the last lot even though it isn't at all!!

Not worth the paper it's printed on!
 
Mine came in from the field lame last year. No swelling, no cuts, bruises etc. We had full lameness diagnostics including xrays (and repeat xrays because rooky vet got the exposure wrong :mad: ) and for steroid injections, mctimoney, specialist farriery etc.

None of that got us anywhere so the vet pushed for an MRI but I just couldn't get the money together :o so we opted to turn him away.... Touch wood several months later all is okay now and the horse is insured for £30/mth and I am DELIGHTED to pay it!!!
 
Realistically I think if your horse is uninsured then you have to know that you might have to put it down, a horse can run up thousands of pounds of bills in a couple of seconds that most people could never begin to afford.
 
My plan is to put an amount away each month to build up a pot of cash in case of emergency. I of course have never managed this and so my lot are just uninsured.

I would borrow the money from my mum if we had to find it in an emergency, & would spend as much really if needed, for colic surgery or whatever.

I would be more ruthless possibly than some people and won't keep a horse going at great expense to be a field ornament. If they have a catastrophic injury which means they are unlikely to work again and which doesn't come right with 6 months in the field then I would probs PTS rather than spend thousands with a limited prognosis.
 
Insurance mounts up - particularly if you have more than one.. If you put the amount of money to one side that you would pay out each year - providing no catastrophe occurs early on - then this builds in to a 'pot of money'..

Admittedly my 'pot' is more 'virtual' than 'real' but it does mean that I have had access to the money along the way..

I think if you are not insured its easier to take one step back and really think about what you will achieve in the long term through treatment and take a longer view.
 
vets are probably less likely to spend money if horse isnt insured, one i used recently made sure they got all they could out of my insurance
 
My horse was insured but they wouldn't pay out for tendon damage so i paid for it myself costing 3.5k in total but then had to have her put to sleep last week (which then cost an extra £800!!!) i dont regret paying out the money she meant the world to me. I have cancelled the insurance on my older horse it's not worth the money every month!!!
 
It would really depend on the injury, prognosis, treatment available and how much I liked/thought of the horse.

In general, if uninsured, I would most likely to treat cheaply and then lob in a field for a year.
 
thanks for your thoughts folks. i am thinking of taking mine off the insurance as its just so expensive every month...:confused: but can't decided what to do for the best... i think with my 5 year old who is potentially very talented it would be worth (with a good prognosis) spending a lot to try and get him right...however, my TB is 14 and mainly happy hacks so he really wouldn't be worth throwing lots of money at...:(:confused:
 
TBH, I keep my premiums low by insuring madam for the lowest amount possible, but still gives me 5k vets fee cover. This is really important to me as I wouldn't have the money otherwise if something drastic went wrong....
 
Mine was uninsured for vet fees. She needed a £1,500 operation. I looked at it objectively, I could not get another horse for £1,500 and the sucess rate of the operation was 90% - so I paid for it - it worked. She then did another leg and the vet told me to turn her out in a field - luckily for her that worked too.

One thing to consider is that there are 2 price lists - the insured one and the uninsured one. Also how easy is it for you to get hold of large sums of cash quickly?

My horse is still uninsured as she only has one leg left that is incident free - can't see the point in just insuring that leg.
 
we are looking at cancelling the insurance for our 2- still have 3rd party with the BHS but no insurance policies.

luckily have a bit of a kitty if one has an accident in the next few months and then keep paying what i would have paid in premiums into a savings account instead.
 
Maybe not the best example to pick as tendon/ligament injuries are pretty cheap to treat. You can even do without scanning them if you have a competent vet who knows what they are feeling. Treatment (unless you are getting involved with IRAP or stem cells in which case you probably are insured!) is almost always cold treatment/rest/controlled exercise which is free!

The worst ones are chronic wounds - what seems relatively minor at the time and certainly not something you would PTS a horse for - can often run into the thousands of pounds when you have been bandaging and dressing for a long time, plus antibiotics, swabs, debriding scar tissue etc. These are the ones which really hammer an insurance policy and can't just be turned out for a year to sort themselves out like a tendon can be if money's tight.
 
Maybe not the best example to pick as tendon/ligament injuries are pretty cheap to treat. You can even do without scanning them if you have a competent vet who knows what they are feeling and the bill might even be less than your policy excess! Treatment (unless you are getting involved with IRAP or stem cells in which case you probably are insured!) is almost always cold treatment/rest/controlled exercise which is free!

The worst ones are chronic wounds - what seems relatively minor at the time and certainly not something you would PTS a horse for - can often run into the thousands of pounds when you have been bandaging and dressing for a long time, plus antibiotics, swabs, debriding scar tissue etc. These are the ones which really hammer an insurance policy and can't just be turned out for a year to sort themselves out like a tendon can be if money's tight.
 
dieseldog said:
My horse is still uninsured as she only has one leg left that is incident free - can't see the point in just insuring that leg.
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Sorry but that made me LOL!
My point exactly, FWIW and to be brutal at 14 if your TB is a relatively sane trouble free happy hacker then I wouldn't have him insured, Vandi on the other I would.
I wouldn't put myself or my horses through a colic op, and legs will either come right or not. I know there have been lots of successful colic ops, but I personally have looked after horses that have been operated on and then gone 12 months later having never fully recovered.
 
I insure fully including for LOU, exclusions can usually be re-defined or lifted once 12 months have gone past.

My retired chap is not insured, he is uninsurable having had multiple claims and a LOU pay out. If something minor he would be treated and I would pay for x-ray or scans to be certain what was going on. If something major he would have to be PTS, colic I certainly wouldn't have him operated on as he is now 18 and it's not fair on him. He lives out happily in a herd all year round and anything that meant he couldn't do that anymore would be a case for PTS.

My ridden chap has just renewed his insurance, all legs, back , eyes and teeth are currently excluded. I can get the teeth bit removed with a vet report. The others need to stay for 12 months thenn hopefully can be lifted or made more specific.
 
One of mine fractured his pedal bone last year and he wasn't insured. The first question the vets asked was "is he insured?" If he had been they would have operated on it and put a screw in, but as he wasn't we had a bar shoe fitted and just rested him. Thankfully it healed totally, and I am so so glad he wasn't insured because if he had had the op he could have had all sorts of complications.

I think it depends totally on the type of injury. But with my other horse that is insured, I have always said that if anything happens and the vet asks if he is insured (as long is it's not life threatening of course!) I will always say I have to check my policy first because I don't want them getting carried away with unnecessary treatments just because he's insured.
 
OH has his 2 insured although Jacob is excluded for both front legs- despite only being lame on one :confused: Harry is on a basic policy as he is a youngster,Dex is insured fully comp and Nod is too old so i have BHS to get him 3rd party ins and i put £30 a month away in an ISA for him and half my annual bonus. Thats maxed out now so i have enough for a colic op etc if he needs it and i dont have to fight anyone for the money. Once i have a bit more saved then i will cancel Dex's as i will be able to "self insure"
 
When I was trying to work out the cheapest way to get 3rd party insurance I phoned up NFU. I wanted to insure her for £500, no vet fees, just so I was covered for 3rd Party. They refused point blank to insure her as she had had an operation. Wouldn't change their minds. I thought that was pretty bad.
 
if you just want third party liability cover, you could consider becoming a BHS gold member, as you get the insurance as part of the membership - that's what I do.... and I figure with 3 neds actually if I saved up the insurance each month an put it in a separate account, chances are that would cover most emergencies and what that didn't cover my credit card would be bashed for! (that's what credit cards were invented for, as far as I'm concerned!!)
 
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