Insurance - would you?

[TreeDog]

I have on very short notice aquired a very sweet little yearling. I am wondering what, if any, insurance I should get for him. I have seen Harry Hall's vets fees insurance for just £75 a year which seems reasonable enough for the peace of mind that if he injures himself I won't need to worry about cost of treatment. However the insurance is for 'accidental external injury' only, I'm not 100% sure what is meant by this but I take it to be only open wounds.

I do have savings so would be able to afford treatment, but would struggle emotionally to decide when things would be too expensive to fix. (The £75pa insurance only covers up to £1500 anyway, and has £165 excess, plus any travel/vet stay fees not included). I guess it's a difficult question to answer but for those with more experience of these things, how expensive do claims for 'accidental external injury' tend to be?

 

[holeymoley]

I had this last year but decided not to renew this year. There’s not really much it covers except if they get a wire cut in the field etc I phoned up last year to see if I could claim for cellulitis caused by mud fever and they said I could but I didn’t bother as the bill wasn’t much over the excess.

 

[ihatework]

The Harry Hall policy is very limited and there are all sorts of expensive things outside of that policy that could happen.

You need to be clear in your mind how you can access funds (thousands) quickly if needed or if you are prepared to PTS for something treatable. If either of those options doesn’t sound feasible to you then you need better insurance coverage

 

[planete]

I have this kind of insurance for my cob at the moment but it will cover fees up to £10000.00 for injuries, colic surgery and a few other problems The yearly premium is however £400.00. I did this as he is young, green and an unknown quantity and I can cope with run of the mill vet fees but not if it goes over £5000.00.

 

[MissTyc]

Given that my 11 month old punctured her fetlock joint requiring a joint flush and surgery to the tendon sheath not to mention the countless checkup scans and adequan afterwards, I would not have been able to cover the cost if she wasn't insured. Or, had I put it on credit card, I would have been stumped when fresh out of boxrest she did herself ANOTHER external injury in the field and then required surgery to her hock!

 

[milliepops]

some people find the catastrophe cover policies to be a good compromise, they are more expensive than the HH but offer quite a bit more in terms of amount covered (more £ per incident plus additional conditions/procedures)

 

[TreeDog]

Having just looked at the insurance emporium (previously E&L) I can get a policy for injury and illness vets fees up to £4500 for just £225pa, plus another £10 if I want disposal cover which I probably will. That seems really reasonable to me so I think I'll go with that. I just don't think I would want to face the question of choosing to pts over treatment if treatment would end up in the £1000s.