insurance - vet fees or not?

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travelmad

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Anyone have advise on adding vet fees to insurance? It costs quite a lot (I have shopped around, but even then at 350 a year or more its a lot). I have never had expensive fees with any of my animals - have I just been lucky??

anyone have any idea of what their regular yearly vet bill is? With vaccines and the odd visit this year I prob only spent 250 on 2 horses, one of which was very sick.

of course there is the risk issue! i am not normally risk averse!!

has anyone decided not to get vets fees and lived to regret it?

or has anyone gone without and realised they saved lots of money?

thanks.
 
I always have vets fees - my big horse is insured for £500 (payout if he dies etc) and £5000 vets fees. Over the last 3 years I've spent about 13K in vets fees. You could argue that the vet wouldn't suggest half of the treatments they do if you weren't insured... I know when the horse went lame in front last year with ringbone, vet said I could treat it off the insurance which would basically be bute or we could start a claim. The claim cost around 4K and included 2 x Tildren, Adequan, Danilon and Cartrophen. They didn't cure him (because you don't cure arthritis) but they certainly make him more comfortable for a period of time. He wouldn't have had any of that without vets fees cover because I can't afford expensive medications.

He also has hock spavins... spent 5K a few years ago on that including lots of Adequan, joint injections etc. Now he just has his joints medicated annually at a cost of around £150! I don't have vets fees insurance for him now because of his age (if he gets a soft tissue injury he'd just be chucked out in the field, anything catastrophic and I would PTS now) but the new, young horse has it.

The only way to think is "can I afford potentially expensive vet bills if something bad happens?". I wouldn't be without it. You can usually pay by direct debit so it's a monthly payment rather than annual lump sum.
 
I pay about 20 pounds a month with petplan, am covered for all the usual I.e. public liability and death, theft etc, and also vets fees up to 3,500 with a 500 pound excess. I had the option of up to 5000 pounds of fees with a 135 pound excess... But that would have been 37 a month suddenly, so I think its a happy medium really.

I just took out things like tack, loss of use etc to get it down as I don't believe I need those as much.
 
Vaccines would not be paid by insurance.

You have been very lucky not to have a heavy vet bill, many on this forum have had bills for many thousands of pounds, some are insured & some are not.

Fortunately I haven't had a vet bill for a while but I am insured & my horses have no exclusions on them. There are three ways of dealing with vet bills you either insure, you have a separate account & you pay what your insurance payments would be into the account every month so you have a nest egg to pay for any unfortunate bills. The final way is to just simply pay the bill when it arrives out of your savings etc.

If you insure then your horses bills will be paid however if you do not claim then you will have paid the money in & had nothing back. If you pay what would be your premium into an account & the amount builds up then you may not have a bill & will have a little nest egg. On ther other hand you may have a bill that your nest egg isn't large enough to pay so you will have to take a financial hit.

The whole thing is a lottery. I have paid in the premuims & cannot remember the last claim I made, but I know that whatever the claim it will be sorted out. It's a decision only you can make. :)
 
I have had an insurance claim in the past and very glad I did, as it ended up costing £3,500.

However, a couple of years ago I cancelled the insurance and started putting £50 away per horse every month, when I reach £500 I buy Premium Bonds, as I reckon that it is then less tempting than keeping the money in a bank account. I now have £2,500 in Premium Bonds!

However, I would emphasise that if I needed to I could find the money to give my horses the veterinary care they needed. Paradoxically, I think that if I wasn't so financially secure I would definitely insure. Dont bother doing tack, etc as they are very caution about paying out, also, if you keep the excess as high as you can, that also really helps.
 
My horse was insured. He got kicked in the field fracturing his leg. Without vet fees being covered hed have been pts at the time, as it is he made a perfect recovery.
On the other hand hes no longer insured as i just cant afford it and ive probably spent more on insurance than the fracture cost so im trying just to use the money saved to get a bit of nest egg in case of emergancy, especially as i have two horses.
 
my horse of 11 yrs! never had to claim, touch wood! so thought, why do i need vet fees for a 2yr old that will be standing iin the field! MISTAKE

He came in cut up from a fence and with a swollen hock! vet bill at £800 so far, been on steroids for over a month and hock is still massive! vet suggests scans and xrays but I cant afford it! wish id got get fees now :(
 
With horse insurance at around £350 per year, you need to be paying in for more than twelve years without a claim before a £5000 claim becomes uneconomic.

If you have fairly easy access to £5000 - the most you'll get for vets fees on insurance - I'd suggest saving your money and putting it safely away somewhere. You've still got the same financial recourse - as long as you don't need to make multiple claims - and your pot is growing all the time.

The decision about whether or not to insure comes down to a judgement call - are you personally more able to find a lump sum as and when necessary, or do you need to spread the risk?

The other thing to be aware of is that not all claims will necessarily be paid - insurance isn't a guarantee.
 
I have vets fees insurance and am incredibly pleased I do - a couple of months ago my mare choked cause she was greedy basically but within 24 hours was in the Dick Vets with aspiration pneumonia. She spent a week up there on IV's etc with scopes, ultrasounds etc. All in all the insurance have paid out over £2500 in vets fees for her. I simply couldn't have afforded a bill like that so for me vets fees insurance is essential. I've easily recooped my premiums from this.
 
The trouble is, if you do claim, the insurance just goes up to pa for it, as well as exclusions being made. I pay nearly £3000 a year in insurance (far too many horses) and am thinking about stopping. In the last 10 years I've only had one bill over £1000, for treatment after an accident to a TB mare's leg. She was only insured for £500, as was unrideable, but the next year her insurance was put up to £700 a year. I cancelled it. Unfortunately we lost her a year later when she was out on loan with a friend, just after she'd had a foal, but the bill then wasn't over £1000.
 
I think if you have several horses, then putting the money aside each year can be cost effective.
Swilliam: - £3000 a year is a good pot to call on, so instead of insuring I would be tempted to put that into a bank account in case of emergencies.

However, I've had 5 big claims, probably at least £15,000, on a single horse. Very glad he was insured.
 
I do hate insurance though, even though I do have it! They load everything against you.

I did stop for a couple of years, but I had a large amount of savings then.. Ironically, about two weeks after we did all our tack and rugs got stolen (for four horses) and one horse got a bad cut that could have gone to big vets bills. I have to say the vet was almost better when they heard they weren't insured. Had he not be he would have been off for scans etc for sure.

I am lucky that I have never had a bigger vets bill than £200 for the horses in my life (hope I've not jixed myself saying that!).

At the moment I insure them for less than their value to knock the costs down (I insure for £3k when they're perhaps worth double that) and only up to £3k in vets fees - I could put more on a credit card/fund extra myself if need be..
 
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