Those that insure just for vets fees & 3rd party....

alsxx

alsxx

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I insure all of my horses for vets fees and third party only, and keep the value of each horse to the absolute minimum...anyway, looking ahead to renewal time for one of mine and thinking of changing as my excess is stupidly high at £300. I've just had a displacement colic with him and the excess plus half the hospitalisation at £230, plus having to pay £250 to get him to vets and back has racked up quite a large bill for me to pay.....the total bill was £1,750 so I've almost paid half it seems.....:eek:

Anyway, that aside, I'm thinking of changing and looked at Petplan for a quote which came out at pretty much what I'm paying already but with an excess at £135 which is rather more manageable (well he is a TB and likes seeing my vet with various self inflicted injuries....:rolleyes:), however I'm not sure if I have to provide a vetting certificate? I didn't have him vetted and will have had him 2 years at renewal time (not until June) but was a bit confused by the info on the site. Can anyone help?

Sorry two whole paragraphs to get to the point....glass of white wine and finest sausages and mash with onion gravy courtesy of OH on offer :D
 
I used to do what you do, then I realised that a, my horse was getting excluded for everything b, even 'vets only insurance' was getting expensive for 4 horses c, my vets let me pay by instalments anyway! - so I jacked in the insurance and put some money in a special account each month instead. Why pay an insurer x amount monthly for something that 'might' happen (and might or might not be excluded) instead of paying the vet monthly in the unlikely instance of something expensive actually happening? I cover for 3rd party with the BHS.
 
It said a vetting was required for anything over £2.5k, but also said the minimum requirements was a vetting which is where i got confused lol!

Sadly my current policy only covers half of the hospitalisation, monitoring etc, which is annoying as I didn't realise until I got the cheque through from them but hey should have read the small print (not that it would have made any difference, horse still had to go in to vets)....I have to pay extra to have 100% hospitalisation etc or travel cover etc.

Dogstar, I am thinking this may be the way forward and have considered this before, however until I have a few grand put away (I probably pay approx £800 per year insuring the 3 of mine so at that rate it would take a while) I would be screwed if anything serious came up so it's taking that leap of faith. I have one 20 year old who has been with petplan for years and has full cover until he is 25, with no exclusions, a mare who has a couple of exclusions on leg bits and then my TB will now likely have a colic exclusion - i could have claimed for a couple of other injuries last year but they came in at £400 ish each so I didn't bother as hardly seemed worth it for the sake of £100.....
 
I agree leave the 20 year old on there now, but do check with your vets- mine have assured me they are fine with monthly instalments so no scary lump sum required! Or just get a 0% credit card and stick any disasters on there!
 
Can't offer much advice other than to say I've always found Petplan to be about the most expensive to insure with so not great if you're trying to save money! Was looking to insure one of mine with them and got quoted over £700 a year! Most other companies were significantly cheaper and still seemed to offer the same cover. Definately worth shopping around before you decide who to go with.
 
I have claimed back much more than I have ever paid out in insurance with 3 really big claims and a couple of little ones over 3 years so I'm glad I insured.
With one accident prone horses it makes sense.
When my premiums went up I looked at reducing the insured value but that didn't make a big difference, the loss of horse bit wasn't a big part of the premium, the big bit was the vets bit and that was the same regardless of what his value was.

I too only got half the livery bill for a hospital stay but some don't even pay that and I got transport paid for taking him to the vets. On the minus side I had to pay half of an MRI (some companies pay all).

However if you have a few it can be worth looking at self insuring, i.e. paying money monthly per horse into a bank account instead of your insurance companies and only touching it for emergencies. That works for quite a few people but I think you need a few so they balance each other out.
 
I've insured mine with petplan, one valued at £800 and one at £2500 and I didn't have to provide a vet certificate, and they've been great at paying claims over the years.
 
sprite1978 said:
This is true, but for some companies it is £2500. Why did you have to pay half the Hopitalisation fee?
Click to expand...

I had to pay 50% the hospitalisation fees when my boy went into horspital and im with nfu.

I only have my tb insured at the mo with nfu and currently have my first big claim in 4 years of being with them, they arnt cheap but have paid up with out to much fuss but have been incredibly slow! they still owe £800 from september! i have nearly reached my claim limit of £5000 and only paid £130 excess. But as the claim has involed all four legs and his back alot will be excluded and my renewal price is going to be mad so i think im going to give insurance a miss now and put money away each month in a seperate acount purely for vets fees. or look into a cover for accidental injury in the field ect. ( he likes to self harm!)
 
I will most likely continue insuring, I just want to find a policy where my excess is not so high. When I need to claim (with this one anyway) it almost feels like I am getting to the point of wondering why I bother with the insurance with paying a few hundred on the excess, then hospitalisation etc etc.

If I was totally debt free I might consider self insuring, but my partner and I are mid twenties with a mortgage, a couple of credit cards (one of mine left over from a huuuuuge claim I had a couple of years back on my mare) and a wedding to pay for....if anything major did happen I would not want to risk racking up debt on a credit card, or equally facing pts because I could not afford it...hope that makes sense!!
 
I've not used Petplan for my horse but they have been superb with my accident prone Springer Spaniel and paid out very quickly on claims. He's always at the vet following some disaster or other. Managed to go New Years Eve, mid January and the beginning of February for various disasters!!! Gotta love him!
 
That sounds perfectly understandable to me alzxx, if it worries you then defo insure for peace of mind. You can always self insure later when things are more sorted. I found Petplan fine btw x
 
I have both my insured with Petplan and they have been great over the years. Yes, they are the most expensive, however I bought a mare in April last year and since then I have had around £9000 in vets fees with her which started about 7 weeks after I bought her. My shortfall has been around £1500 as her first condition went up to around £6500. However they do not pay the livery costs of the horse being in hospital, although they will pay the daily nursing care. And they don't pay for transport to and from hospital, so best be aware first.
 
All three of mine are with Petplan.

I've had two really large (£5000 each for a leg injury and colic surgery) claims and 2 smaller claims on the same policy in just over a year, and they paid out no problems. I have never been asked for a vetting certificate. I think you only need it if insuring for death / loss of use for a horse worth over about 3k.

I personally don't find petplan stupidly expensive, but I only insure for vet fees, I have BHS for third party cover and accept that if they die then I don't get any money back. But I could cope with not being able to 'replace' them, but would be devastated to have to put to sleep because I couldn't afford the vet bill.
 
I have 3 insured and 1 with NFU and 2 with Petplan. Many insurance companies do not pay hospitalisation costs at all so NFU are pretty good to stomp up 50% imo.

I moved my 2 to Petplan with a high excess £500 to give me lower premiums a couple of years ago from NFU and I am doing this on the basis that most minor ailment callouts fall under £200 anyway which was my original NFU excess and it's the big ones I am worried about.

With NFU for 3rd and new horse - they are good and his excess is much more reasonable at £130 and justifies the high premiums.
 
I spoke to NFU ages ago about changing. Initially I needed a vets cert and asked NFU if I change (to them) will I need to re-vet? They said no as long as I've had continual cover since the last vets cert (which I have). That said I had trouble paying E&L (who I'm with, hence looking elsewhere). They kept taking the full payment and saying it was all OK then about a month later got a letter saying no payment received. This went on for a while (totally their fault, don't accept visa debit but said they did!!!) and then when I eventually got it all sorted they said I needed a new vets cert as the cover had lapsed!! I went bonkers because it was their fault it had lapsed and they backed down and said OK no additional vets cert required.
 
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