Insurance for a retired horse

[Christmascinnamoncookie]

My YO thinks I’m mad insuring at all, he’d think that regardless of age/health. He may have a point. The horse is retired, has had colic recently (3rd incident so pointless trying to claim, especially with a £250 excess, total was over £600) He is currently recovering from a virus, snotty, off his hay, vet has given penicillin and anti-inflammatories. He is well on the way to recovery, the bill for a shared visit and those meds is unlikely to exceed the excess.

Anyhow, my renewal is over £500. I won’t send him to the vet college for surgery, he’ll be pts on the yard if he colics and needs surgery, for example. Last year, I put his market value as a £1K, way too high. He’s worth nothing, has arthritis, won’t ever work again, is a happy field ornament for the most part. Can I put his value as £1 to lower the insurance or should I let the insurance lapse? I have savings and can afford treatment, but won’t put him through any extreme measures.

 

[brighteyes]

My YO thinks I’m mad insuring at all, he’d think that regardless of age/health. He may have a point. The horse is retired, has had colic recently (3rd incident so pointless trying to claim, especially with a £250 excess, total was over £600) He is currently recovering from a virus, snotty, off his hay, vet has given penicillin and anti-inflammatories. He is well on the way to recovery, the bill for a shared visit and those meds is unlikely to exceed the excess.

Anyhow, my renewal is over £500. I won’t send him to the vet college for surgery, he’ll be pts on the yard if he colics and needs surgery, for example. Last year, I put his market value as a £1K, way too high. He’s worth nothing, has arthritis, won’t ever work again, is a happy field ornament for the most part. Can I put his value as £1 to lower the insurance or should I let the insurance lapse? I have savings and can afford treatment, but won’t put him through any extreme measures.

I would only have third party public liability. Save your money and pay for the necessary. Is he on Prascend?

 

[ester]

Once we got to about evens with regard to what I'd put in and what I'd got out of insurance I stopped bothering (that was before he was retired by a few years aged 20 I think- mostly what was paid out for the squamous cell carcinoma treatment) in some ways it was quite liberating everything being my decision.

 

[criso]

I tried reducing the value of my retired one but it made very little difference as it only effects theft or death, most is weighted for the vets fees.

So I didn't insure as the sort of patching up of injuries I would have done would cost less than the premiums. However now I would look at accident only insurance. Harry Hall membership comes with a really basic one or for more cover Shearwater or KBIS.

 

[COldNag]

If he is 15 or under, Harry Hall vet fees insurance is cheap as chips.

 

[Flowerofthefen]

I insure my 25 yo with the BHS. It's around £5 a month. Just 3rd party as we are near a road.

 

[Red-1]

Rigsby is with Harry Hall. I only did 3rd party, but the vet cover for accidents only was tempting.

 

[teddypops]

How old is he? I insure my veterans with petplan veteran. It costs £9.11 per month and I have £1000 vet cover for lameness, accident and injury. I also have death and disposal on there. My pony is valued at £1000 and as she is now 30, she’s actually not worth anything.

 

[chaps89]

After I had close to £20k paid out on madam I cancelled the full insurance but have an injury only policy with third party liability instead for a fraction of the price. They paid out more than my premium last year after she had an accident so worked out worthwhile for me - however it's worth checking the small print as most will only cover external injuries.
So even though mine had an accident and there were witnesses, it was only paid out due to the tiny graze she had, even though that received none of the actual vet treatment! You want accidental and injury cover.

 

[meleeka]

I have BHS for third party and an empty credit card for emergencies

 

[Christmascinnamoncookie]

I would only have third party public liability. Save your money and pay for the necessary. Is he on Prascend?

No, just daily danilon.

If he is 15 or under, Harry Hall vet fees insurance is cheap as chips.

He‘s just turned 19.

I insure my 25 yo with the BHS. It's around £5 a month. Just 3rd party as we are near a road.

That’s an idea. We’re not far from the M1, but he stopped jumping out of the field years ago! I think 3rd party isn’t a bad move.

 

[Bernster]

Been thinking the same myself for my mare. Very few circs I’d either be able to or want to claim under the ins and not sure it’s worth it, and I could cover what’s needed myself. But I’m a bit nervous of the idea of no cover so wondering if a more basic cover for injury makes more sense. Will check out Harry hall. I did reduce her value it didn’t make that much of a difference. I think you need to go for a different level of cover to really have an impact on the premium.

 

[COldNag]

N


He‘s just turned 19.


.

I'm in the same boat. Pony is 19. Has so many exclusions on his existing policy I'm loathe to keep shelling out £65 a month so looking at accident only. Thought Harry Hall would be perfect and then found the age bit... Other pony is on Petplan Veteran policy and that's £11 a month so might put him on that too.. would like to find something with slightly higher vet fees cover though.
Edit to say, I have our PL thorugh Harry Hall already.

 

[sjdress]

I thought about this For my veteran, as she has so much excluded and I wouldn’t put her through colic surgery. However another horse had a freak accident in the field and managed to fracture his jaw, the total vet fees for this, including a small surgery was £3.5k so I keep my insurance in case anything like that Happens! I am with petplan and it’s pretty cheap in comparison to others.

 

[AandK]

Third party only for my 24yo, I cancelled his vets fees insurance in 2016 as he had a long list of exclusions and I would not put him through any surgery. He since lost an eye (which would have been covered...), which was done standing sedated, but I would not put him through any long periods of box rest. The injury he had that meant he needed to be retired was just treated with field rest. If you have the money to treat any minor injuries then no point insuring for anything other than third party.

 

[Widgeon]

I tried reducing the value of my retired one but it made very little difference as it only effects theft or death, most is weighted for the vets fees.

So I didn't insure as the sort of patching up of injuries I would have done would cost less than the premiums. However now I would look at accident only insurance. Harry Hall membership comes with a really basic one or for more cover Shearwater or KBIS.

Yes I was also going to suggest KBIS, I think they call it catastrophe insurance (!) - https://www.kbis.co.uk/catastrophe-cover/

There is a whole H&H thread on it - https://forums.horseandhound.co.uk/threads/catastrophe-insurance.780444/ - it sounds like Shearwater also have a similar option. It's not cheap but it's cheaper than £500.

 

[Annagain]

I stopped insuring when the boys turned 17 ( I paid to insure Monty at the time too as I was the one doing 90% of the riding and I was terrified of breaking him for his owner and not being able to fix him). The premiums shot up and the cover shot down. With exclusions for both of them after relatively minor claims (about £500 each), the things most likely to cause a claim weren't covered and by that age we wouldn't have put either of them through major surgery so I didn't see the point. Instead, I paid the same amount into a savings account to be used as an when necessary. I have public liability through BHS gold membership

In 8 years I've only had cause to dip in once - but I didn't actually dip in as I got a 30 month 0% deal on a credit card so I used that to pay the bill. Paying it off every month cost half what I was paying into savings, so I paid the other half into the account. All this meant I had enough in there to up my budget for buying Charlie when it became clear I wasn't going to get what I wanted for what I initially had to spend and I still have a fund for vets bills. I do have Charlie insured for death as it seem it would be a lot to lose so early into owning him but the plan is to stop that after the first year. I did look into insuring him fully and based on the quotes I had, 8 months into owning him (touches every bit of wood she can find) I reckon I'm about £500-600 up on not insuring for vets bills.

 

[chaps89]

The other thing is to make sure he is covered as a retired horse - with Petplan for example they offer cover based on different activities the horse does and risk associated. Therefore a horse covered for say hunting will be alot more to insure than a horse covered for being at grass, even if in all other respects the policy is the same. That might make a difference so worth looking at anyway.
I'd definitley suggest all horses have 3rd party cover- we had a claim a few years ago at work where horses got onto the a3 and there was a major accident as a result. The owners had 3rd party liability through their home insurance but it wasn't enough! You hope it never happens to you but if it does it's something you definitley want to be well covered for.

 

[Christmascinnamoncookie]

I looked at BHS Gold membership today, which seems to be the Harry Hall one? I was directed there by my current insurers, SEIB. I didn’t see an age limit. I need to investigate when I get a sec. There's no phone signal in my classroom!

 

[criso]

I just looked at the Harry Hall one for vets fees only and there is no upper age limit. It only has a limit of £1500 per incident but that would help for any kicks or cuts that need stitching or antibiotics, xrays etc. At £75 a year I would have taken it out for my retired one if it had been an option then.

 

[Shilasdair]

I don't insure my two field sloths - I just put £100 a month into savings for vet bills/anything medical they need.