Public Liability

BHS don't cover other people riding your horse regularly.
I called them last week as my daughter is now riding someone else's pony, and I now wanted separate membership for her, only to be told that she has never been, and would never be covered under my BHS membership.
This was not as I had understood it. I expressed my concern that probably a lot of other people are under this misapprehension too!
I wonder how infrequently you'd have to ride for it to count. I didn't ask as I was a bit shocked to be honest.
 
I queries BHS on this back in 2016, and for sake of this thread, am reprinting the reply I received at the time from Ann Baylis at BHS:

Subject: RE: query on BHS Gold membership
Date: 2016-03-09 10:52
From: Ann Baylis <ann.baylis@bhs.org.uk>
To: (me)


Hello Sue,

Thanks very much for getting in touch with us.

Insurance policy-speak isn't the easiest to decipher! Our insurance is
provided by South Essex Insurance Brokers, who wrote the policy and are
always happy to decode it for us or members. I think in this case you
would be best to contact SEIB direct, as the honest answer to your
question is that I&#8217;m not entirely sure. It hinges on how often and how
regularly your friends ride.

Essentially, the Public Liability Insurance included in your Gold
membership covers you, the member, to ride any horse regularly,
providing you have the owner's permission. Other people are insured to
ride your horse, with your permission, on an OCCASIONAL basis. I asked
SEIB about this recently, and they explained to me that they can&#8217;t
cover two people for a single premium, or they just couldn&#8217;t provide
the cover they do at such a low cost for us. So, if someone is REGULARLY
riding the horse, then they wouldn&#8217;t be covered, and need to have
their own insurance. If someone is riding the horse on an OCCASIONAL
basis &#8211; ie, you have a friend staying, or someone is riding it with a
view to buy it &#8211; then that&#8217;s ok.

Now, defining 'occasional' is quite tricky! SEIB felt it was a bit of a
grey area: it&#8217;s not legally defined. They said that in the event of a
claim, a Loss Assessor would come out and establish the circumstances
surrounding the incident, and proceed from there. Essentially, if there
is a standing arrangement for riding to happen, and not arranged ad-hoc,
I think it would be viewed as &#8216;regular.&#8217; However, as I said, please
do feel free to contact SEIB with the exact circumstances that your
friends ride under, and they will give you a clearer idea of how you
stand. If your Gold membership doesn&#8217;t cover you, they will be happy
to give you a competitive quote for an add-on policy that does.

SEIB are on 02476 840700 &#8211; press option 1 for insurance queries.

I hope this helps!

Kind regards,

Ann Baylis
 
Thank you SueChoccy, that is really helpful. I have realised I don't need BHS membership which is a shame as they do such excellent work.
 
The plot thickens and I remain in a mucking fuddle.

Spoke to KBIS today, asked the simple question of 'if a friend rides the insured horse and has an accident is the rider covered'

Answering 'no' to the question of 'do I pay the rider' (that is the truth), the KBIS said, yes the rider is covered. Great I thought and asked them to confirm where in the policy info I could find that in writing. After a moment or two KBIS changed their mind and said the horse is covered but not the rider and my policy had no public liability on it all as I had told them I am a gold member of BHS and it is not legal to double up on public liability insurance.

I really have to put an afternoon aside and go through all 4 policies, speak to all providers and the BHS to get myself sorted out. We all hacked out on Sunday and I spent the entire hack wondering who was properly insured and who wasn't.
 
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