Those who don't insure their horses ....

I insured mine in full when they were younger and I just didn't have the money if something went wrong. When they got to 20 and the cover available was reduced, I still took that cover as it gives you 3rd party beyond that offered by the BHS. I have a young horse and insure in full again. No right or wrong answer i'm afraid
 
I'm a bit horrified by the whole once you've had a problem we won't cover for anything vaguely related again. At present I am paying £50 a month for mine, but I will review it and consider a vet fund when it comes up again.

Paula
 
This is the first year after 9 years with NFU i have took out BHS gold membership and cancelled insurance policies...with 3 horses i was paying nearly 100 per month and my excess was 145.00 but over the years i have never made many claims as my bill was usually just under excess...i have accumilated a few exclusions on things i have not even claimed for so im now just going to pay for bills as they come...hopefully even putting half my premium away each month should give me a little reasurance should something happen, iv paid thousands in premiums and claimed around 3000 :o
 
I've always insured but have had a big claim this year going right up to my limit so wondering if it's going to be worth insuring next year when they put in all the exclusions. I do also have a separate savings account for the horses but it is a difficult decision. I've got three one 8 who had the claim this year, one 18 and one 13 so might just insure the 8 year old but last time I thought about not insuring I ended up with another big claim and lost my horse at the end of it anyway.
 
I had a bad experience when claiming for my TB who had cancer. I only got back the amount I had paid that year in premiums and I ended up paying for a lot of his treatment myself. His premium was then increased to £70 a month and they excluded cancer from his insurance. It was a bit of a catch 22 because he was fully insured for loss of use etc but immediately after treatment he could be ridden but in the long run we knew he would die of cancer. Because it was more than 12 months from the initial illness they wouldn't pay out on loss of use or death even though we knew at the time it would eventually kill him. I could have had him PTS but didn't want to but I think they would have wriggled about that as he could then be ridden again for a time (approx 2 years). The horse was only 7. He eventually had to be put down aged 14 after 4 years retirement. I stopped paying insurance then and set up a savings account for £50 a month. This was 19 years ago now and in all that time I have had one large claim that was for an ulcerated eye when my current mare poked herself in the eye. The bill was about £1000 which is a lot less than I would have paid in premiums over that time (I have had between 1 and 3 equines all that time). My current horse is 21 so can only be covered for accidental injury anyway.

I know I have been lucky and I am also lucky in that if I needed to pay a large bill we could afford it.
 
A horse at our yard was not insured, it had to under go major surgery 2 weeks ago, and they had to take out a bank loan to cover the cost, and very sadly last weekend the horse had a sudden complication and had to be put to sleep. So even more expensive, major bank loan and now no horse. Tragic situation very sad.
 
Having just had the whole colic episode (claiming for it) and knowing that will be excluded I'm now seriously considering not insuring Dom any more. He's already excluded from anything causing or related to any kind of lameness thanks to his earlier diagnosis of navicular etc by MRI. Not sure how they can exclude everything but there you go!

Don't know what my bill for the last two nights will be, but I had one in hours callout, two out of hours callouts, admission for two nights with checkes every hour for the whole time, fluid tap into his tummy, ultrasound, sedation, blood tests, IV fluids for 24 hrs (approx cost of IV £500!!) and who knows how many rectal exams. It's got to be £2000+. Apparently colic surgery (just the surgery and nothing else!) starts at £6500 at my vets. It goes up from there depending on complications. So with insurance of £5k I could still end up with a bill for £3500+, easily. I've also been told my youngster's premium will increase too because I own both and have claimed??? She's had nothing at all ever claimed for! I'll be moving her to another insurance company until it becomes uneconomic to insure her too.

Oh and for those who don't know, just because you didn't claim for something doesn't mean you're covered for it in the future. They ask for history and if they see anything on the notes they didn't know about you aren't covered for it in the future. Might as well claim for everything that's over the excess even though I've always settled bills under £1000 myself.

Nightmare! :mad:
 
I've found insurance to be a rip off tbh, so we just have BHS Gold membership and pay our own vets' bills. As others have noted, it does seem that bills that are not going on insurance are smaller than those that are. We have no intention of having extensive invasive surgery or prolonged box-rest (they're all over 15 anyway), so we aren't really likely to get massive bills. The biggest bill we've had in recent years came to about £1000, including pts on Sunday evening, with multiple horses you would pay more than that in premiums each year.
 
When my boy had his cancer the insurance company tried to not pay because my history and the vets didn't match. I had declared that I had his wolf teeth removed when I bought him as they were causing problems and the vet just wrote no previous history on his form. I don't think the wolf teeth had anything to do with his tumour. I had to fight to get them to pay what they did.
 
I have never insured a horse, and for almost 30 years I got away with it - then I bought my last horse.

In 2005 I paid out just under 1k for x-rays & treatment for laminitis and an abcess which both came at the same time. Then in 2010, over 1k for diagnosis only (the treatment was rest - nothing else involved) of a damaged knee ligament.

I lost my girl to colic four weeks ago at the age of 15. It cost over £300 for the vet and £800 for the cremation, so altogether, a further £1100.

So, I've paid out just over 3k in seven years on one horse. That's nothing compared to the premiums I might have paid over 37 years of horse ownership - at times owning more than one horse as well.

I think it's ok to do it, but you must have the contingency fund and be prepared to stick your hand in your pocket when it all goes wrong. I am so lucky that on each occasion I've been able to just pay the vet bills as they arrived, but there have been times in my life when I would have been in real trouble if I'd have had to find a grand at short notice!
 
horseandshoes77 said:
This is the first year after 9 years with NFU i have took out BHS gold membership and cancelled insurance policies...with 3 horses i was paying nearly 100 per month and my excess was 145.00 but over the years i have never made many claims as my bill was usually just under excess...i have accumilated a few exclusions on things i have not even claimed for so im now just going to pay for bills as they come...hopefully even putting half my premium away each month should give me a little reasurance should something happen, iv paid thousands in premiums and claimed around 3000 :o
Click to expand...

Pretty much ditto for me.

I've ALWAYS had my horses insured for vet cover - for past 40 years. Finally quit last year. I've now got BHS Gold membership for 3rd party and my tack covered on the house contents insurance.

It's also been my experience that vet's bills drop considerably for clients without insurance. For example, a broodmare of mine needed a hock arthroscopy and 1 weeks stay at a well known veterinary hospital (this was over 18 years ago, now.) I was quoted a charge of in excess of £1500 until it was discovered the mare wasn't covered for the procedure (pre-existing condition when I bought her.) In the end I was billed £800.00 for the same prodedure; including the op, hospital inpatient care and several post op visits. Funny that :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top