Insurance renewal mid claim what happens?

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cre8tivekid

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I was wondering if anyone has any experience of this?

My horse has been undergoing treatment from the vet, initially lameness in the forelimb - which was put down to poor foot balance. Subsequently it became evident that he was sufferering from arthritis in both hocks which has now been treated with steriod injections (to little effect).

My insurance is due for renewal in January and I have recently received a letter from the insurtance compant asking for an update from the vet before they will pay any more bills on the claim.

At the moment he is insured for competition and also loss of use. I have only got him insured for £4000 as that was expensive enough.... he was worth as lot more. Currently he is worth nothing!

Ultimately I can see this going towards a loss of use claim but having never claimed for treatment before let alone made a claim for loss of use I was wondering how this works and what it means come January when my policy is due for renewal.

I am reluctant to ask the insurance company for this advice as I don't want them to know the prognosis. My vet has been quite vague with them so far and is going to update that his treatment involves as gradual return to work which has been difficult given the poor weather.

Anyone got any experience that they can share?

Thanks
 
It's no good trying to hide anything from your insurers as a) it's not legal and would quite likely invalidate any claim whatsoever and b) they'll find out anyway as soon as they talk to your vets. Come clean. Ask them for advice. Read the small print of your policy. It might well be that they have to remain commited to covering this existing claim to its conclusion, whatever that may be, since it started within your insurance cover period. Without doubt, every aspect of it will mean an exclusion so where that leaves you with a subsequent and separate claim for LOU I don't know. But they're the ones to explain everything to you. Good luck.
 
They are comitted to covering your claim until the year is up (or your limit is reached) - dont let them tell you otherwise, it wont stand up - if you had to contest it,you'd almost certainally win. As soon as they accepted your claim,they comitted themsleves to the full year of cover.

Asking for an update is fairly normal, it just needs a letter from the vet saying something like the advice is XYZ and the treatment is currently ongoing.... but Box of Frogs is right - dont hide anything (actally - this applies to everybody - and everything that happens to your horses - never dont claim if something happens that goes over the excess - they always ask if the horse has been treated for the problem before, and the vet HAS to tell the truth - it could be the difference between getting your claim accepted and being done for fraud!! Its also the reason that vets ask if your horse is insured when they go out to something - I know that people like to think its becuase they want to drain as much money as possible out of the owners, but its not!)

you are lucky - my insurance company decided to tell me that they wouldnt be renewing my cover when it came up for renewall in October - Im just glad that I mucked up and only covered her for 3k rather than 5 - at least in the 7 months since my claim started we had reached the 3k mark,so I dont need to fight them for the other 5 months worth of cover they should have to give me !!!

good luck, and hope you get to the bottom of mending your horse soon x
 
I was not really meaning to hide anything from them as such but more as the claim is currently a very small amount wondered whether they would hike up the premium massively if they thought that the claim was going to become higher and possibly result in loss of use. I also was not sure whether changing the use class would hinder any future claim as if the horse is only insured as a hack rather than for competion they might claim that there was no loss of use. But if this goes back to what he was insured for at the time the claim was started then this is no problem.

But I am not optimistic about the boy returning to full work as all the treatment to his hocks so far has made absolutely no difference at all :-(
 
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