Valuation of a horse for insurance purposes...

Unfortunately the broodmare market is pretty dire at the moment and breeders are getting quality mares from Germany etc for pennies. I know of several studs who have recently bought extremely well bred mares for £1000 - £1500 inc the cost of transporting them over here. My own mare cost the breeder £12000 a few years ago (bought as a broodie) and when I sold her as a broodmare last year, I only got £1800 for her :( I would just insure her for £1000 as I agree with what other posters have said that it's highly unlikely that you'd ever get her value paid out to you in the event of her death. BEVA guidelines are so specific that they are rarely met. When my D suffered her injury, I reduced her insurance from £8k which is what I paid for her to £2k. It saved me a lot of money.
 
I'm not selling dee so in that respect her value means nothing. It's more an valuation and I guess and evaluation as to whether some of the perks in being offered are worth it.
 
Although she is well bred, she has no competition record at affiliated dressage, so her market value as a brood mare would be around £5000 at most. As someone else said the market is so bad at the moment, well bred mares are going for peanuts.
We just insure ours for a nominal fee to cover vets fees as we could never afford to insure for their full value anyway.
 
I'd just insure her for a nominal fee of £1 to £2k max, as you'd be hard pushed to get any more out of an insurance company for a non proven mare.
 
Personally, I wouldn't insure her for more than £3k- if anything did happen to her, I think the insurance company would argue against a higher value payout.
 
I know you're not selling her but the insurance co will only pay out what it would cost to replace like for like. All I'm saying is, she's not worth much as an unproven broodmare or a light hack, no matter how well bred she is.
 
I think really you would be better to have the value as low as possible. At this stage with her the important things are vet fees really aren't they. The insurance company will be really happy to fleece you a fortune in premiums and then if it came to it, tell you she was actually only worth a nominal value.

It costs me 45 a month to insure mine for 2500 inc LOU. After the first year I will remove the LOU because mine is very well bred so I feel they wouldn't pay it on that anyway as she would have value as a broodmare. She is worth more like 4500 but I wasn't willing to pay that much in premiums, I just wanted the vet fee cover and 3rd party etc really.

If you lower the value you could save masses in premiums and put that aside "just in case".
 
My experiences are I have a pink papered Westphalian high value horse; he was insured for LOU and he was diagnosed with chronic sacro illiac dysfunction. I was paid out LOU for him - 80% of his insured value. I have been offered to re-insure him now for a nominal value (£2k) by the same insurers, but the premiums are very high (£1600 pa) so we declined.

I had my mare pts last summer - she had stress laminitis and I was paid out her full value by the insurers (different insurers from the WB). There was no questions raised and they were very kind and efficient.

Both insurers paid up without quibble. I spent ages collecting adverts of dressage horses for sale with Tim's breeding - Sandro Hit line as I thought I would have to justify his value. We had one call from the assessor and he agreed his insured value as correct.

OP for sure you would have no option now to take loss of use, I would say and I can't see your insurers quibbling if you reduced her value to £2k. I doubt they would let you go lower - they want to get some money back from you for all the paid out stuff. They wouldn't let me go lower with my WB and having had LOU no other insurer will take him on.
 
Last edited:
Delicious_D said:
I wont cover for loss of use becuase its actually really hard to get loss of use nowadays. The reasoning behind not insuring for £1000 is in the event of her death, this is the most that will be paid out. :(
Click to expand...
It's very likely though you wouldn't get more than that out of the insurance company and for every yer tht she gets older you wouold get less. Insurance companies don't tend to look at the 'potential' of a horse, especially as a broodmare. Relistically an injured happy-hacker could be replaced for less than £1000 - and that is what the insurance company will consider. As you will be 'downgrading' her insurance, I expect that your vet will need to write report to say that she has had to be retired because of injury - and asked to give an opinion as to her value currently.
 
The market is appalling at the moment. :(

She has an affiliated comp record, placed at age classes and graded so has some value as breeding stock. I'm really only interesting in vet fees and the like. LOU is hard to claim and hard to fun IMHO.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
It's very likely though you wouldn't get more than that out of the insurance company and for every yer tht she gets older you wouold get less. Insurance companies don't tend to look at the 'potential' of a horse, especially as a broodmare. Relistically an injured happy-hacker could be replaced for less than £1000 - and that is what the insurance company will consider. As you will be 'downgrading' her insurance, I expect that your vet will need to write report to say that she has had to be retired because of injury - and asked to give an opinion as to her value currently.
Click to expand...

But she could compete,her injury hasnt retired her and in theory she could make a complete recovery, im just not risking it. Plus with work, family etc, im not into competing that much anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top