Insurance. Should I reduce sum insured ?

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Muddywellies

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I am just dealing with my renewal, and as per normal, its BL00DY expensive !!!!! Thing is, he is insured for £4000. I am now wondering whether to reduce that, perhaps to £3000.
He is now 14 or maybe 15, and is not doing a vast amount. In the winter months I barely ride him. In summer, we do a fair amount of schooling, and the occasional local show. However, he is very well bred (Landgraf lines I believe) and moves beautifully. The only reason he is not competing at BD and BSJA events is because of me. He is a particularly talented SJ, and with someone else, would be doing far more (and probably doing well) About 4 years ago my vet said he would be worth between £5k and £10k.
Anyway, if something happened to him and I had to replace him, yes £4k would get me a very nice horse, but then i believe i could also find one just as nice for £3k that would suit me perfectly. I dont need an expensive horse - just something that will do a good Prelim and Novice dressage test, and hack quietly.
So, in order to reduce costs, should I reduce his sum insured ??
 
Just had my renewal forms through, thought the same thing. Must get in touch with insures's. Note to self!!!

Jane
 
I must admit, I have been thinking the same as SS, every time I have had to have a horse pts, they have never paid out so it would be better for me just to get cover for the vets fees and perhaps bank the difference. Unless the horse breaks a leg and has to be destroyed instantly it is very hard to get any payout. Plus then you would have to prove to the insurance company that your horse was worth the money.
 
I've done this with all of mine - they are insured for a very small amount but have good vets fees cover. The amount you can reduce to varies between companies, from £100 to about £1000 I think. I went with Shearwater as their policies seemed very reasonable, especially for my veteran, and they had good recommendations on here.
 
I do this with all mine as main concern is Third party and vet fees, by reducing your sum insured it will take your premiums down by quite a bit
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It might also be worth checking the activity group you are in to see if you are in the right group for what you do as this can also help with the price.
 
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I'm planning to do this with all of mine when theirs come up for renewal. Does anyone know what the smallest amount is you can reduce it to?

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Half the Purchase price is normally the lowest unless there is a medical reason to reduce the sum insured.
 
Think very carefully before reducing your amount. Most insurance companies will only pay out a percentage of the sum assured and not the full amount for loss of use so you need to read the small print carefully. NFU only pays out up to 80%, so if your horse is insured for £5000 you will only get back up to £4000.00. I have just had to claim for loss of use which I nearly didn't bother with when I took the policy out but thank god I did. If an unthinkalble accident happens, your horse can become valueless overnight. My horse is no longer able to be ridden but he is quite able to live a nice life just being a horse in a field with his mates (he is not suffering). For this reason I don't believe I have to right to euthanisia but I still have to pay to keep him for the rest of his life so the insurance money will help towards that. You cannot sell a broken horse and in this climate would struggle to even give one away as a companion, so my advice is to stick with it.
 
I looked at that when NFU put my premiums right up last year after 3 big claims.
In the end I didn't as it didn't save me much, they gave me a breakdown of the premium and most of it was on vets fees which wasn't affected by the value.
The only bit that it reduced was the part of the premium that covered loss of animal which wasn't a big saving.
 
Having unfortunately had to make a few claims in recent years for the death of horses I would comment on the following:

1. if you have a horse PTS on "quality of life' reasons rather than medical necessity you are very unlikely to get any payout (including vet fees and "disposal" costs)
2. if you have a horse PTS as a medical necessity and the insurance company agree they are stil more than likely to get the loss adjusters to deal with you to reduce the amount they pay out on the value of the horse. Without a good competition record, from my experience, they will decide the horse was not worth as much as they were happy to base their premiums on.

I have no experience of loss of use claims as I do not take this insurance having heard too many horror stories from people and the fact that many policies will reduce the amount they pay out is you do not have the horse PTS.
 
i have reduced our sums insured on both ours to £500 each. I still get vets fees at £5,000 per incident. the only thing is if anything happened to them we would only get the sum insured. However to us they are irreplacable and we have to think they willlive happily into their old age. its so blooming expensive and thats an insurance person talking !!!!
 
Hi I changed my insurance from NFU to Petplan to save money. I have opted for the same horse value but I took a voluntary excess of 400 pounds as I figured that the normal excess is 150-200 and that covers most small ailments and its the unexpected whoppers I want cover for. 2 years ago my mare I had only owned for 3 months lacerated her eye and the bill was 5,800.00. This increased excess made a huge difference in cost.
 
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