Insurance help

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gallopinghooves

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Hi Everyone, I'd love some help with insurance please. It seems very overwhelming! I'm currently looking at Agria - they have great reviews but I know you have to pay excess PLUS 25% of the fees. Any experiences with them?

My other thought is that maybe I just go with 'catastrophe' insurance (covers any catastrophes like open wounds and colic surgeries etc) - this works out cheaper and covers all the major things. Wouldn't cover the minor claims but I don't mind spending the occasional 200-500 or so on any small issues. I just worry about major issues like surgeries etc.

Any advice?? xx
 
From personal experience it seems quite random. I have a 16 year old cob with multiple minor health issues that I manage. Insurance has paid out quite a bit for when we discovered his hock arthritis, and yet I'm still paying lower premiums than some people on here are being quoted for new, "clean" horses. Perhaps because I didn't pay much for him in the first place? I don't know.

I would make a short list of half a dozen reputable insurers, then phone them all one by one. It takes quite a while but when on the phone, ask the operative to give you the different quotes for varying levels of vet cover, different excess, including and excluding cover for death, and whether they will allow you to under-insure for a certain proportion. That will give you an idea of what's having the biggest impact on the premiums.

Catastrophe insurance is good for older or retired horses (i.e. when you wouldn't put them through too much) but I think there's quite a bit that it doesn't cover (e.g. ongoing lameness not caused by a wound), so might not be appropriate for a ridden horse unless you have fairly deep pockets (think 2 to 5 thousand, not hundred).
 
I gave up with normal insurance as my gelding had so many exclusions. I've gone with harry hall for accidental injury and public liability insurance, you can add colic insurance for about £25 a month too. I've chosen harry hall as they cover all of my horses for one small fee!
 
As my horses are all now 19+ I stopped insuring them some years ago (was with NFU) and became a member of World Horse Welfare which gives me £1500 of vet cover for accidental injury for all of them for £172 per year. WHW also gives you public liability insurance which I think it essential to have.

Agria have a good reputation and do life time cover but it isn't the cheapest.
 
Yes I think unless there are already issues I’d recommend NFU, I use them for my two and they are prompt to pay out and no percentage of the fees to pay just the excess. You have to call them for a quote though. Agria you also need a vetting for the life cover policy
 
For me a big benefit of Agria is that making a claim doesn’t mean you will have an exclusion the next year. Their model works well if (like me) you prefer to get issues investigated ASAP, not wait for them to become major and don’t mind the co-pay model.
 
I insure but I don't insure the horse for its full value. I still get the vets fee cover which is really all that is important to me. If I loose one I don't get a lot of money, this has never been an issue for me and actually the one time I lost one that was insured it didn't even occur to me to claim the money I could have had in the event of accidental death.
It keep's my premiums down but give the reassurance that I have vets bills, or some vet bills covered.
 
I have the KBIS Catastrophe Cover as this basically covers anything life or death with 100% of vet fees.

For context, I pay £70 a month and my horse is insured for £10k (I provided her three-stage vetting, but this was not a prerequisite) - I think this is fairly reasonable.
 
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