Insurance exclusions and activity levels

[AshTay]

Two questions really:

1) my renewal has come up and both of my horses front legs have been excluded for claims relating to lameness. Is this normal? (he only injured one leg, not both).

2) is it worth me changing my policy to reflect that he is now retired or is this likely to raise the claim as many horses are retired because they have problems and end up getting worse when out of work? should I leave his cover as RC activities-type level on the grounds that he MAY recover enough to be ridden (he most probably won't) so retirement isn't set in stone?

 

[Kat]

I think that if you want to have precautionary cover for ridden work most policies have a level for hacking and schooling. I'd drop it down to minimum and up it if you need to.

You can probably drop it to non-ridden cover if you don't think you will be riding him during the year, you don't have to permanently retire him, you could just turn him away and see what happens.

Talk to the insurers about the exclusion, if it was due to an accident and your vet supports you they may remove the exclusion from the second leg as it isn't likely to affect the other leg.