Insurance renewal - ouch!

[SEL]

Just had baby cob's renewal (how has he been here a year?!) from KBIS

For a young pony without any claims or health issues it has shot up by £150 and is now just under £800. Is that normal? I just did an online comparison with Petplan and theirs was even higher.

I've spoken to their renewals team and apparently its due to the number of claims they are getting. I felt like telling them they need to stop encouraging the vets to run up huge bills using their expensive machines for everything.....(that's still a sore point from the microcob's investigations last year)

I'm not surprised people stop insuring.

 

[Miss_Millie]

Mine went up from 600 to 800. Also with KBIS. I am seriously debating not insuring after next year and putting the money into savings instead.

 

[BallyJ]

I've had a quote for between £1600 & £1800 (depending on what disciplines I decide on)
That was KBIS

 

[Squeak]

Ouch that is a lot of money! I have to admit I'm one who has given up insuring and just go with WHW so that I have public liability, third party and external injuries.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

I now insure for injury only. NFU for two went up to over £120 a month and B was excluded for almost everything anyway. New policy with Harry Hall £66 a quarter for the two and they paid out almost £2000 when DP sliced his leg open just before Christmas and need hospital treatment and twice weekly vets visits for a month.

 

[Peglo]

I think mine went up £9 a month so it’s at £120 a month now. I was going to drop LOU off it but haven’t yet. That would make it much cheaper but not sure if I should or not.

 

[TheBigPony]

I have been looking too and the cheapest was £1,100 and that was with a £500 excess from KBIS. That's for a 7yr old with no health issues and just doing low level RC activities.

Agria was around the same but with them you also had to pay 25% of the bill and another vetting!

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Just had baby cob's renewal (how has he been here a year?!) from KBIS

For a young pony without any claims or health issues it has shot up by £150 and is now just under £800. Is that normal? I just did an online comparison with Petplan and theirs was even higher.

I've spoken to their renewals team and apparently its due to the number of claims they are getting. I felt like telling them they need to stop encouraging the vets to run up huge bills using their expensive machines for everything.....(that's still a sore point from the microcob's investigations last year)

I'm not surprised people stop insuring.

omg my horse insurance is about £ 43 i think, I would not touch Kbis

 

[Lady Jane]

My KBIS renewal went from £1300 to £1800 this month and I have decided to self insure. I've no doubt I can get cheaper but when you read the small print its cheaper for a reason and to be fair to KBIS they have paid up for me on many occasions (not related to this horse). I think with that sort of price increase many people will self insure or reduce their cover but if the insurers can't make sufficient money they won't offer the service. KBIS told me the vet cover claims rocketed last year and that's what has driven the increase.

 

[SEL]

omg my horse insurance is about £ 43 i think, I would not touch Kbis

My petplan policy for the microcob is about that but her renewal isn't due until Aug so I might be in for shock #2.

My KBIS renewal went from £1300 to £1800 this month and I have decided to self insure. I've no doubt I can get cheaper but when you read the small print its cheaper for a reason and to be fair to KBIS they have paid up for me on many occasions (not related to this horse). I think with that sort of price increase many people will self insure or reduce their cover but if the insurers can't make sufficient money they won't offer the service. KBIS told me the vet cover claims rocketed last year and that's what has driven the increase.

That's what KBIS told me as well. No incentive for vets not to run up bills as far as I can tell.

I'll probably insure him for another year given he's young as is the only one who wasn't a freebie. After that he'll probably join the wonky ones on the Harry Hall policy.

 

[Lady Jane]

I'm finding some comments a bit confusing re vets running up bills. We have a choice on how we treat out horses. I have taken both the expensive and cheap options based on what I considered best for my horses and my vet has always worked with me & supported my decisions. My insurance enabled me to make those decisions without worrying about the cost and having decided to self insure I could be in a more difficult position

 

[Barton Bounty]

Im £63 a month I have only ever had a colic claim. Touch

 

[SO1]

I was looking at quotes in preparation for the possibility of getting a new pony at some point and I think the prices also vary depending on the purchase price as well. So if vets bills are the main concern then reducing the value of the horse may reduce the premium. Also if you have public liability through another source such as BSH gold membership then that might reduce the premium.

I was going reduce Homey's value but did not do that in the end and in some ways I was glad as when Homey had to be PTS it was under Beva guidelines so it has meant I have some money towards a replacement horse as well as the 5k worth of vets bills being covered.

 

[Bobthecob15]

Give NFU a ring, they were the most reasonable by miles when we renewed in January x

 

[Muddy unicorn]

NFU wouldn’t even give me a quote for my daughter’s mare because we’d had two claims the previous year for a different horse insured with a completely different company .

 

[Hormonal Filly]

NFU? I pay £80 a month for my mare but that’s because I had 3 claims totalling £13,000 on my horse before. I’ve now claimed £7,000 with my mare and no issues but can only expect the increase at renewal.

KBIS were double NFU when I had a quote last year. I say my mares worth £1,500 for insurance purposes, makes the premiums a lot, lot less. If I said she was worth £8,000 it would be over double.

 

[Tiddlypom]

When you self insure, as I do, it's always revealing just how many diagnostic procedures are shelved as being unnecessary .

My vet knows that I self insure but will always stump up for what needs doing, but she cuts out the frills. She's talked me out getting bone scans and MRIs before, though I was the one suggesting getting them done. 'No, we'll try this first'. And 'we don't need those images, but we do need these ones'.

She was also right to overrule my instinct to swerve getting my mare scoped for foregut ulcers and to go straight for gastroguard, even though she, me and another vet thought that she almost certainly had them. She scoped clear.

I'm afraid that vets are well aware that insured horses have up to £x k available to throw at them for diagnostics and treatment, but only for a year, and for *some* vets that exerts an undue influence on what they recommend to the owner.

 

[SEL]

NFU wouldn’t even give me a quote for my daughter’s mare because we’d had two claims the previous year for a different horse insured with a completely different company .

I have the same problem with NFU.

In the past 2 years the microcob needed surgery for breathing issues then had a field accident where the vets (IMO) went completely over board with their investigations. Bizarrely her Petplan policy is still cheaper than Baby cobs KBIS policy but I think that must be due to their value, although neither are insured for LOU

I think those of you who haven't had vets throwing the diagnostic kitchen sink at their horses are lucky. I've had to argue with one practice about just having x-rays of a foot we already knew had ringbone because I wanted an up to date view of what was going on - they wanted to do a full lameness work-up. Getting the Appy's hind suspensory ligaments scanned resulted in an argument on the yard because they wanted her up at the hospital for a work-up. I just wanted to see if she'd knackered that ligament and to what extent.

 

[Honey08]

When you self insure, as I do, it's always revealing just how many diagnostic procedures are shelved as being unnecessary .

My vet knows that I self insure but will always stump up for what needs doing, but she cuts out the frills. She's talked me out getting bone scans and MRIs before, though I was the one suggesting getting them done. 'No, we'll try this first'. And 'we don't need those images, but we do need these ones'.

She was also right to overrule my instinct to swerve getting my mare scoped for foregut ulcers and to go straight for gastroguard, even though she, me and another vet thought that she almost certainly had them. She scoped clear.

I'm afraid that vets are well aware that insured horses have up to £x k available to throw at them for diagnostics and treatment, but only for a year, and for *some* vets that exerts an undue influence on what they recommend to the owner.

I have the same situation with my well trusted vet. Always tries to save big bills, but knows when it really does need sending for scans etc.

I don’t insure any pets now. We use Dogs Trust for third party canine insurance, and Harry Hall for the horses. If I insured everything my premiums would probably be over £3k and I’ve only spent more than £1500 on vets bills in a year once in the last decade… (and that was an £7k bill). I reckon I’m still £10k better off than I would be if I’d insured…

 

[Goldenstar]

I self insure vets do approach treatment differently, that’s my experience over and over it also gives you so much more freedom.

 

[poiuytrewq]

Those who self insure, how much money do get into a kitty before giving up the insurance?

 

[Honey08]

Initially about £5k and I always have a clear credit card too, but it’s dropped a lot lately (the balance available). A lot of our animals are getting old now and I wouldn’t put them through that much nowadays.

 

[sakura]

I was with NFU for 10 years. I never claimed but they still increased the cost year on year. I ended up paying through the roof with them so switched to Petplan. I don't think NFU are that keen on insuring horses anymore, personally.

 

[rara007]

My cobs is around that and I had to go with a not great company to keep it closer to 500 than 1k.
I expect he’ll be going onto catastrophe cover next year but I wanted first year covered!

 

[SEL]

My cobs is around that and I had to go with a not great company to keep it closer to 500 than 1k.
I expect he’ll be going onto catastrophe cover next year but I wanted first year covered!

My thought process with Baby cob is wanting him out and about to ensure nothing nasty crops up as a 5yo then I'll reconsider.

Just dropped his insured value a bit to bring the quote into line with last year. Right now he's a hairy, mud encrusted lump so I doubt anyone would be even pay what I've insured him for!!

 

[Goldenstar]

Those who self insure, how much money do get into a kitty before giving up the insurance?

I started with a credit card .
I then saved monthly £200 into my BS account .
I paid the bills when they came along I would also put other bits of money in like if I sold a saddle I put the money from that saddle in the account and paid for the new one from the current account ( creative accounting ) .
I paid the vets bills unless I was really stuck and stopped saving when I got to 10k by then we where much more comfortable .
Bear In mind this was a long time ago and I had several horses so it’s meaningless now .

As a rule of thumb you should put away at least what the premium would be every month and have a credit card as back up .

 

[Upthecreek]

Personally I would not do away with insurance until I had the same amount as the vet fee cover I get with insurance sitting in my savings account. I have savings, but would I want to spend the lot in one go on horse vet bills? No. So for me it would have to be a separate savings account only for vet bills with £5k in it before I’d stop insuring.

 

[eggs]

I put £3,000 into a separate account and then put £500 each month (equivalent to my monthly premiums) for my 4 horses. Touch wood but this year I have only had three vet visits:
- routine vaccinations
- Cushings blood test (would have been excluded as horse has had this for a couple of years)
- 1 joint injection which I would have been able to claim if I was still insuring but that it still less than 1 month's premim

 

[rextherobber]

E&L or whatever they're called now (Insurance Emporium?) would probably be cheaper but you do have to pay 17% plus the excess on a claim, which might cancel out any saving on premium?

 

[lottiepony]

My delightful beast has been insured from day 1 of purchase. After 5 years of ownership and only 1 small claim we maxed the lot as he had multiple issues. We wouldn't have saved that much money to cover what they did had I done down the non insure and save route. My renewal last year was eye watering as you'd expect but also included so many exclusions it really wasn't worth it. I phoned and discussed and the super helpful lady gave me various options - one of which was to swap to a veteran policy. He was only eight lol. But it is an option and actually gives me decent cover for external accidental injuries, public liability etc etc. all for a fraction of the cost, thinks it's roughly £27/month. I'm with SEIB. Its worth a call to your insurers to see if they are options that could potentially lessen the cost?