Public Liability

[AdorableAlice]

I have been thinking, dangerous I know !

I am a BHS gold member. I have four ridden horses all insured and all carrying public liability insurance as part of their package. KBIS, Petplan and South Essex x 2.

Before I call the BHS and make myself look foolish, any thoughts on whether I actually need individual public liability cover on each horse ?

I am wondering if I can slim the horse insurance down and use the BHS to cover their public liability. Or am I being particularly dim ?

 

[Equi]

BHS will cover any horse you are riding (not including any horse you are earning money to ride on) so yea i don't think you need the extra ones, however you have to also decide who is more likely to pay - i have BHS gold as i don't insure but i have heard they are bothersome to get claims from. Ive never needed it so i can't comment on that from a personal point.

 

[doodle]

If you have bhs gokdbyou dint need separate cover for each horse. Works out cheaper for me even with one horse to go trough bhs and certainly a lot cheaper with 4.

 

[AdorableAlice]

Thanks Equi, might have a problem as the horses are ridden by other people on my behalf.

 

[Annagain]

In principle, yes but I believe they call themselves an "insurer of last resort" so will try to make you claim off any other insurance you may have first. For example, some household policies may cover public liability. If you have one of those, BHS won't pay out and will force you to use the household policy instead.

ETA - unless you need BHS membership for anything else you may be better off cancelling that and keeping the public liability element of the insurance.

 

[eggs]

I am a full member of BD and checked with them. All my horses are covered by their public liability insurance even if they are not registered with BD so I canned that part of my insurance with NFU and saved a substantial amount of money. Probably worth checking if they are covered when ridden by some-one else.

 

[AFB]

I think BHS cover any horse owned by you as long as you're not charging them for the privilege - and you riding any horse as long as your not being paid to do so.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[touchstone]

World horse welfare champion plus cover will provide cover when your horse is riiden by other people or employees, it's £52 per year.

 

[Chuffy99]

Well there’s lots of us on here that the BHS Gold insurance would apply to, does anyone know of a claim paid by them?

 

[Asha]

Thanks for starting this thread, i had no idea that they (BHS) where a last resort policy.

I asked the question if I pay someone to ride one of my horses, and lets say we are out on a hack, horse spooks rider comes off ,horse runs off and causes an accident, am I covered? The answer was no. I'm going to have to look at a new policy.

 

[chaps89]

I work for a well known insurer. Our home claims paid out the full public liability amount available on the house insurance policy last year after 2 horses escaped onto a major a road. We paid out as the owner exceeded the public liability on her own horse insurance. It's one of those things that we all hope and don't expect it to happen to us, but it proved just how badly wrong it can go if it does go wrong. Having previously worked in equine insurance the premium for third party liability is usually a very small amount of the overall policy premium so for me it wouldn't be something I'd try to save on. Obviously this is very worst case scenario admittedly!

 

[Goldenstar]

Well there’s lots of us on here that the BHS Gold insurance would apply to, does anyone know of a claim paid by them?

Yup , one of my youngster reserved into a car when ridden by the friend riding it away the car was parked on private land without permission the BHS paid .

 

[Gloi]

Well there’s lots of us on here that the BHS Gold insurance would apply to, does anyone know of a claim paid by them?

I claimed from them going on 40 years ago when my pony damaged a parked car. No problems with the claim.

 

[Orangehorse]

Your horses are covered if someone else is riding but you aren't paying them. However, the insurance does not cover the rider, it is for 3rd party only. That is, if the horse damaged someone else's property like a car.

An incident happened to someone. Out riding on horses owned by A, with a friend B riding. Something frightened the horses and B fell off and broke her arm. This meant that she couldn't work for a few weeks and A thought she was covered through her BHS membership for B, but she wasn't. Had the horse run off and damaged someone's property, that would have been covered. So your horses are covered, but not their riders.

 

[AdorableAlice]

Your horses are covered if someone else is riding but you aren't paying them. However, the insurance does not cover the rider, it is for 3rd party only. That is, if the horse damaged someone else's property like a car.

An incident happened to someone. Out riding on horses owned by A, with a friend B riding. Something frightened the horses and B fell off and broke her arm. This meant that she couldn't work for a few weeks and A thought she was covered through her BHS membership for B, but she wasn't. Had the horse run off and damaged someone's property, that would have been covered. So your horses are covered, but not their riders.

Well that leaves me stuffed then. The pair of 6 year olds are owned and insured by me but I don't ride either, both are ridden and competed by friends. Entries are in my name as owner with the rider named. The 4 year old is in 50/50 ownership of myself and a friend with the friend riding him. The 10 year old is owned and ridden by me but on occasion would be ridden by someone else if needed.

No one pays to ride them and entries are ad hoc depending on who has the time to go online and make the entries. We are a team of 3 having fun with the horses and there would be no blame levelled if anyone had a fall and was injured, but that is not the point. I understand the horses are covered if they cause damage to a member of the public or item but I hadn't realised the rider was not covered if it wasn't me. Time for a rethink by the looks of it and dumping the BHS cover.

 

[Kat]

Be worth checking the cost of personal accident cover for the riders. I'm not sure a standard public liability policy would pay rider injury in your situation.

If you want none fault cover for people injured by your horse that is different.

 

[Orangehorse]

Your riders should have their own insurance for riding, which they might well have anyway. It is certainly worth enquiring.

You say no-one would be blamed if they had a fall, but what if the fall meant that they couldn't work for weeks/months or worse.

I used to work for the Council and part of my job was to consider "what if" which has made me a gloomy pessimist and a risk assessment nerd, but sometimes, just sometimes the very worst does happen even if we all hope it doesn't.

 

[AdorableAlice]

Your riders should have their own insurance for riding, which they might well have anyway. It is certainly worth enquiring.

You say no-one would be blamed if they had a fall, but what if the fall meant that they couldn't work for weeks/months or worse.

I used to work for the Council and part of my job was to consider "what if" which has made me a gloomy pessimist and a risk assessment nerd, but sometimes, just sometimes the very worst does happen even if we all hope it doesn't.

You are absolutely right and I am looking at stand alone rider policies now.

 

[Leo Walker]

Public liability is roughly £1.40 a month of my policy so it actually works out cheaper to leave it on the insurance policy.

 

[Clannad48]

Slightly different but one of our horses is out on loan - as part of the loan agreement I strongly recommended the loanee had personal insurance, rode and handled the horse with the correct safety equipment - hat, gloves, body protector etc. I discussed various points with the loanee after she turned up to try the horse without even a hat!! I purchased BHS Public Liability and also took out Personal Insurance for my daughter when she was riding.

I take the view that if you have it you never need it. If you haven't got it then you will probably end up needing it. Law of Sod.

 

[wingedhorse]

Well that leaves me stuffed then. The pair of 6 year olds are owned and insured by me but I don't ride either, both are ridden and competed by friends. Entries are in my name as owner with the rider named. The 4 year old is in 50/50 ownership of myself and a friend with the friend riding him. The 10 year old is owned and ridden by me but on occasion would be ridden by someone else if needed.

No one pays to ride them and entries are ad hoc depending on who has the time to go online and make the entries. We are a team of 3 having fun with the horses and there would be no blame levelled if anyone had a fall and was injured, but that is not the point. I understand the horses are covered if they cause damage to a member of the public or item but I hadn't realised the rider was not covered if it wasn't me. Time for a rethink by the looks of it and dumping the BHS cover.

I have third party for two horses through BD membership. It covered me when I had horse on loan to me, it covers damage my horses do to third parties handling them / riding them in a non commercial sense.

So if a friend /non paying sharer / contributing but not making a profit from sharer was riding or leading my horse, and damaged a car, are covered.

My paying sharer has independent personal accident and third party cover.

But am sure when I emailed to enquire, BD membership covers third party insurance of last resort for any horse owned by me or on loan to me, being handled by anyone on non commercial basis. So not yard staff / instructor / trainer or paid rider. But yes to sharer contributing to share costs being covered. Money paid by sharer doesn't cover horses 4 weekly shoeing bill!!

Same when I used to give neighbouring student lifts to college and charge share of fuel, I checked as not making profit, just contribution to costs my car insurance were not concerned.

 

[Goldenstar]

Well that leaves me stuffed then. The pair of 6 year olds are owned and insured by me but I don't ride either, both are ridden and competed by friends. Entries are in my name as owner with the rider named. The 4 year old is in 50/50 ownership of myself and a friend with the friend riding him. The 10 year old is owned and ridden by me but on occasion would be ridden by someone else if needed.

No one pays to ride them and entries are ad hoc depending on who has the time to go online and make the entries. We are a team of 3 having fun with the horses and there would be no blame levelled if anyone had a fall and was injured, but that is not the point. I understand the horses are covered if they cause damage to a member of the public or item but I hadn't realised the rider was not covered if it wasn't me. Time for a rethink by the looks of it and dumping the BHS cover.

The chances are the riders would never be covered because they assumed the risk when they got on your horse unless they could prove you had been negilent in some way .
There was a case where a rider sued a riding school when she broke her arm in a jumping lesson the case was thrown out as it was judged the rider assumed the risk of falling when she got on the horse .
I think you would have to be pretty negligent to get a claim against you from a rider in circumstances you describe .

 

[chaps89]

Petplan do standalone rider plans for the individual rider.
Or you can usually find 2 types of personal accident cover to add to the horses own policy - a basic one which will just pay a small lump in the event of death or loss of a limb which is usually very cheap. Or a more comprehensive cover add on which will cover hospital stays, time off work etc which will be more expensive but would usually cover anyone riding or handling that particular horse so long as it's not on a commercial basis (ie yard staff)) It's just weighing up what's more cost effective - to add it to each horse depending on what the insurer offers, or for the riders to have individual policies.

 

[Sussexbythesea]

Well that leaves me stuffed then. The pair of 6 year olds are owned and insured by me but I don't ride either, both are ridden and competed by friends. Entries are in my name as owner with the rider named. The 4 year old is in 50/50 ownership of myself and a friend with the friend riding him. The 10 year old is owned and ridden by me but on occasion would be ridden by someone else if needed.

No one pays to ride them and entries are ad hoc depending on who has the time to go online and make the entries. We are a team of 3 having fun with the horses and there would be no blame levelled if anyone had a fall and was injured, but that is not the point. I understand the horses are covered if they cause damage to a member of the public or item but I hadn't realised the rider was not covered if it wasn't me. Time for a rethink by the looks of it and dumping the BHS cover.

Your public liability insurance will cover your liabilities towards your riders but if you are not proved liable through negligence etc. it won’t pay. It won’t be any different on any other insurance either. The only way they can have accident insurance to protect themselves if there is no liability on anyone else is to get their own personal accident insurance. This is different from public liability.

 

[Adopter]

Slightly different angle, but our land runs along side a popular NT moor and having watched people climb walls into our field I was worried if the dog, geese or horse hurt general public would I be covered. I changed our house insurance to NFU to be certain, bit more expensive but I felt I needed the public liability cover, even though the people should not be climbing our wall into the field in the first place.

 

[Yardbird]

Public liability is roughly £1.40 a month of my policy so it actually works out cheaper to leave it on the insurance policy.

But how much cover do you have under this policy?Need to compare like with like.BHS cover up to 20 million. How much damage could be potentially caused by a loose horse on a busy road at night.

 

[Orangehorse]

Case reported in Farmers Weekly where a cow escaped from a field and a driver crashed into it. No negligence by the farmer, but the motorist awarded £50,000 plus £40,000 costs from the farmer. The report didn't say if it was covered by insurance. If there was no negligence maybe it wouldn't be.

 

[SirBrastias]

You are absolutely right and I am looking at stand alone rider policies now.

It is worth talking to your insurers. I rang KBIS because my younger brother and occasionally the yard staff were riding my horse. Even though they have their own insurance (brother has riders insurance and yard staff covered under business) it was only £20 / £40 (depending on level of cover) to include other riders in my horses insurance.

Horse has insurance for vet bills / third party/ me and other riders. I have my own riders insurance for when I ride other people's. For years had pet plans rider insurance believing it covered me on my own horse only to read the fine print and realise it only covered me riding horses not owned by me!

 

[SirBrastias]

Wanted to check I wasn't talking rubbish. This taken from KBIS website

Personal Accident Insurance covers you for injuries you sustain while riding and handling horses, these types of policies can extend to include cover even when you are not around horses.
Personal or Public Liability Insurance protects you against claims made by third parties for property damage or bodily injury, caused by your horse. For example, if you were out hacking and your horse kicked a car.
Personal Accident Insurance
When looking for Personal Accident Insurance it is important to understand what you are looking to protect yourself against and to make sure that the cover you buy suits your needs. KBIS have two main options for Personal Accident cover. If you have a horse policy with us we can include basic Personal Accident cover for death, permanent disablement and dental work following injury caused by your horse. This cover would cost from £14* per year and would include anyone who was riding or handling your horse with your permission, (excluding Professionals.)

Probably worth checking with then but your riders may be covered? Not sure about your other insurers.

 

[AdorableAlice]

Wanted to check I wasn't talking rubbish. This taken from KBIS website

Personal Accident Insurance covers you for injuries you sustain while riding and handling horses, these types of policies can extend to include cover even when you are not around horses.
Personal or Public Liability Insurance protects you against claims made by third parties for property damage or bodily injury, caused by your horse. For example, if you were out hacking and your horse kicked a car.
Personal Accident Insurance
When looking for Personal Accident Insurance it is important to understand what you are looking to protect yourself against and to make sure that the cover you buy suits your needs. KBIS have two main options for Personal Accident cover. If you have a horse policy with us we can include basic Personal Accident cover for death, permanent disablement and dental work following injury caused by your horse. This cover would cost from £14* per year and would include anyone who was riding or handling your horse with your permission, (excluding Professionals.)

Probably worth checking with then but your riders may be covered? Not sure about your other insurers.

Thank you so much, I have got all the policy documents out and am having a proper read.