Is a £1600 horse worth insuring?

mightymammoth

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Hi,
Can I have some advice please, I should hopefully be getting my 13 year old IDx gelding after his 2 star vetting next week. I was wondering if people thought it was worth insuring him. He is only going to be used as a happy hack and is £1600 including tack and a rug.

I was thinking of just putting £25 a month into a savings account for him and using that towards any treatment he may need in the future, what do people think please?

Thanks
 
Doesn't matter how much they're worth - a torn ligament costs the same to treat in a racehorse as it does to treat a heinz 57 plod. it all depends on whether you would opt to treat or pts instead.
i personally insure all of mine cos i couldnt afford the vet bills otherwise. and wouldn't forgive myself if it was something fixable but i couldn't afford it.
 
Well my £800 horse has just cost over £3000 in vets bills and I have only had her just over a year. No way would I have saved that much that quickly so yes, in my opinion, he is. Unless of course you are happy to PTS if anything big comes up or you are happy to owe the vet and pay in instalments (obviously your vet would have to be ok with that too)
 
I've only got mine insured for 2k anyway to keep premiums down, just have it for vet bills really.

Depends if you'd be happy to have it shot and buy another cheapie if things started to go wrong!
 
A £1600 horse can do just as much damage to itself and others as a £26000 horse so yes i would insure. it needs to be insured for at least public liability or how will you cover the cost should he damage something or injure someone. You can take out Gold membership with the BHS and that will cover you for that. Also because you are only getting a 2 stage vetting done you will not really be fully aware of any real health issues that could arise So i personally would insure for vets fees too. My old boy was sound as far as some people were concerned. i knew otherwise, he cost me over £10k in vets fees on both his front feet. Because he was bilaterally lame in front he was in effect sound. I had had him for years, and he had never cost me a penny in vets bills, until he suddenly could no longer make the distance over spreads. Then the tests confirmed problems in both front feet. I was lucky, because I had him insured i made the decision to have him treated. I could not have afforded £10k so I would have had to have him PTS. As it is 10 years later he is retired, loving his role as grandfather to my youngster.
 
Personally, I would.

Mine cost me £3k, broke and ended up worth meat money, so we dropped her value to £1k. She took about £10k off the insurance company in total over the last five years - and in the end, her mortality money paid for her last hospitalisation fees.
 
Petplan for us. had about 25k off them so far! With 2 claims still on-going.
NFU used to be good, but have apparently gone uber expensive. I don't know about any others, but I've always been told (by vets) to stay away from the one that begins with E and ends in L!! :-)
 
Yes, a previous £700 horse of mine racked up about £9k in vet's fees over a 5 year period.

Gosh. Well I sincerely hope she stops now and doesn't feel compelled to carry on until she reaches the 9 grand mark! Not because my insurers wouldn't pay, but because I think I might have a melt down :o
 
Iv never insured a horse in my life and won't. I pay for vet bills as they come and am £ in. Even my vet told me to put money aside weekly in a savings account. Instead off insureing and that's what I do.
 
Iv never insured a horse in my life and won't. I pay for vet bills as they come and am £ in. Even my vet told me to put money aside weekly in a savings account. Instead off insureing and that's what I do.

That's fine if you have a savings account to begin with but, if like me, you have no real money in reserve (not 5K anyway) it is far safer to insure. If I hadn't have been insured Nits would be dead and buried by now!
 
definately agree with what others have said as for insurance im with scottish equestrian...believe it or not they are an english based company, kbis is also meant to be good, petplan many others if you google them but not E&L
 
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