Insuring your tack - a warning!

[Sealine]

You may have read my previous thread re: my saddle being stolen from a locked tack room a couple of weeks ago. I wanted everyone to be aware of the small print you may find on your car/home/horse insurance and check that your tack is covered.

Making a claim on my horse insurance with Equicover is turning out to be challenging as they want the following in addition to the usual receipts, crime number etc:
Dated photographs of the crime scene and damaged locks.
Detailed Incident report from the police. The police commented that this is very unusual and there is cost of around £100 to obtain this report and it's usually requested by insurance companies or solicitors. Equicover have said they will forego this as they didn't realise the cost was now so high.
Claim form must have official stamp of police station issuing the crime number. Equicover has agreed to forego this too.

I also have the following small print on my Equicover insurance:
They won't pay out for 30 days
Items more than two years old are subject to depreciation. I paid £575 for my saddle second hand 6 years ago so I'd be interested to know what they value it at.

Other people who suffered losses in the same burglary have already been paid out by NFU horse insurance or their house insurance simply by providing receipts and crime number. Therefore I've been investigating my options and spoken to my house and car insurance:
House Insurance - personal items away from home doesn't cover items stored away from home i.e. in a tack room.
Car Insurance - on my policy the max. cover for items stolen from a car is £200 so that's no good either. I would also lose my no claims bonus if I made a claim.

My replacement saddle is currently being stored in my house as the tack room security has not been replaced and upgraded yet.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

Thank you for highlighting the issues you have had and I'm sorry you lost your tack in the first place. I am with NFU but no longer insure my tack due to the premiums for two horses being over £100 a month but had assumed that my tack was covered on my house insurance away from home as all items are below the £1000 mark. I am moving yards on Saturday and don't feel the tack room is secure enough and have made the decision to keep just the bare minimum there in terms of rugs, headcollars, boots, first aid kit etc and will keep my tack at home on a Stubbs freestanding saddle rack in my little used sitting room.

I hope your insurance company comes through in the end and pays up without putting you through hoops.

 

[Elbie]

I wonder if they have a 30 day delay in case the item(s) get recovered in that time somehow.

 

[Slightlyconfused]

Our home insurance covers sport equipment away from home for up to 28 days.

 

[Fred66]

Thank you for highlighting the issues you have had and I'm sorry you lost your tack in the first place. I am with NFU but no longer insure my tack due to the premiums for two horses being over £100 a month but had assumed that my tack was covered on my house insurance away from home as all items are below the £1000 mark. I am moving yards on Saturday and don't feel the tack room is secure enough and have made the decision to keep just the bare minimum there in terms of rugs, headcollars, boots, first aid kit etc and will keep my tack at home on a Stubbs freestanding saddle rack in my little used sitting room.

I hope your insurance company comes through in the end and pays up without putting you through hoops.

I am with NFU and am extremely happy with them but in the early days did get caught out quite badly.

I changed to NFU and said I wanted to put my daughters saddle and my husbands golf clubs on the insurance and got told that the saddle was automatically on as standard cover on their household policy, and that personal items were covered away from home as well.

I then bought my daughter a new saddle and that very same night the yard was broken into and tack and other personal items were stolen.

It then turns out that they excluded the tack if it was being stored at a "riding establishment" they paid out for body protector & hat but not for the tack. Fortunately as we had only just had the new saddle that had gone home with us but it meant that we lost the other saddle which had been destined for ebay.

Lesson learned and I now ensure that they are told where I will be keeping it if away from home and ensure that they cover it accordingly.

Interestingly they said if I'd accidentally left it in a field after say a fun ride or something then it would have been covered

 

[DirectorFury]

I had problems with getting Equicover to pay out for colic (£1k bill). They're a company to avoid, imo.

 

[Sealine]

Our home insurance covers sport equipment away from home for up to 28 days.

I would double check if I were you. When I queried this with my home insurance I was told sports equipment wasn't covered if 'stored' away from home.

 

[Sealine]

I had problems with getting Equicover to pay out for colic (£1k bill). They're a company to avoid, imo.

I have a vet bill claim going through at the moment. If they are as difficult with the vet bill I'll be bloomin' furious.

 

[Shay]

With any insurance you have to read the small print really carefully - and check it each renewal because it changes - and comply with it. All insurance companies will refuse a claim if their conditions are not met.

Good standard home contents insurance will usually cover tack etc on an all risks basis as long as it is correctly specified on the policy and stored in accordance with their stipulations. But you won't find this on cheaper or "shop around" type policies. IME good household contents cover is easier to comply with than tack specific cover and have been better at paying out promptly too.

 

[mle22]

We store our tack in a tack room which is adjacent to our house and had to specify that on the house insurance. It put the cost up considerably and we also had to have particular kinds of locks.

 

[Slightlyconfused]

I would double check if I were you. When I queried this with my home insurance I was told sports equipment wasn't covered if 'stored' away from home.

We left ours at the yard over night as we were riding early next morning but that night the take room got broken into and ours and 28 other saddles and bridle were stolen.
Our house insurance paid out as it was on only stored there for the night and we had the 28 day policy. Had both saddles, bridles and all accessories that went with them replaced.