Why dont you have.....

guido16

guido16

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Insurance?

In the £100 thread it seems a lot of folk are saying they could get the cash if they had an emergency.
Surely thats what insurance is for.

I know it isnt cheap but I dont understand the logic behind not having it. It gives me peace of mind.

Discuss..
 
Well in the case of that other thread, the OP wasn't able to get insurance for her older horse.

I do have insurance, but for one of mine disease will no longer be covered in 3 years time when she turns 20.
 
When you have an old horse and insurance companies do not cover vet bills then there is little point.
All you really need is third party which I do through the BHS Gold membership, that costs one months insurace (roughly)

I put a bit aside every month for any vet bills that I might need to cover.

My youngster is however fully insured.
 
I agree, I have insurance for both of mine, unfortunately this seems to be a big problem with dogs and cats too. My excess is pretty high (£120 or £150 I think) but at least I know that if something major were to happen that I would have it. I know a lot of pet owners don't have it simply because they think it's easier to pay for anything that may come up- all very well until something huge happens. Insurance can get quite expensive and the cost builds up if you don't have to use it from year to year, but I'd personally rather have it than not.
 
Ive always had insurance for my horse, cats, dog - however it isnt always the safety net you hope - pre existing conditions are excluded and most insurers will not cover horses for sickness etc after a certain age - I think in the case of the OP of the original post her horse was over 15 therefore it is unlikely that she would have had cover for anything other than accident/injury even if she was insured.

Our lad had teeth excluded under pur insurance policy due to a cracked tooth showing up in the purchase vetting and therefore we have had to pay a massive vet bill ourselves as everything including death and disposal was excluded as his illness was related to a tooth abcess, I had been paying £40 a month religiously since we had him as well and it wasnt worth the paper it was written on.

Having said that I still wouldnt be without insurance!
 
I DO have insurance, life, health, social, house, business...I just don't insure my horses.

Too many. If they are ill or injured they get the appropriate attention - up to a point.
 
I have never insured a horse although it is very silly of me not to have public liability/third party. Fortunately for me, I have never had a big vets bill either! Not to say it won't ever happen of course but I do have the savings to pay for one should it happen.

It does seem unfortunate that we have fallen into this culture of insuring everything which then gives all vets a free license to charge what they want. At some vets, its the first question they ask! Surely there is something wrong with this!!
 
Ravenwood, I agree ref the vets printing money. Especially the hospitals.
Its a total disgrace.

However, I aint rich enough to have savings to cover any unforeseen accidents etc.

Although, that said, it sickens me exactly how much I have thrown at insurance over the years.
 
guido16 said:
Although, that said, it sickens me exactly how much I have thrown at insurance over the years.
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Thats what swings the balance for me... for example, my beloved dog became very ill suddenly at just 8 yrs old. He spent the day at the vets and then I rushed him to Langford where they took him in overnight. He was put down first thing the next morning as I specifically told them to do so if he was in pain and unlikely to recover.

The final bill was about £850 - having worked it out, this was less than what I would have paid in insurance premiums over his life.

I realise that vets bills for horses often run into thousands so this is a poor comparison but you get the picture ;)
 
Yup, I know what your saying.
And a lot of the time I think the bill is so big because they dont know whats wrong so test for more than sometimes appropriate!

As for your puppies bill. I find that disgraceful! How on earth can they justify that!!!!! (no need to go into details, just expressing my annoyance!)
 
my reply to that would be "no its not but as you are unaware about my lottery win, I will excuse your rudeness"

(I did win a tenner once...)
 
Because I live in the States and there are very few options for insurance. And even fewer vets who take it. I envy you the ability to have insurance on your horses! What a great thing that would be!
 
MissSBird said:
Well in the case of that other thread, the OP wasn't able to get insurance for her older horse.

I do have insurance, but for one of mine disease will no longer be covered in 3 years time when she turns 20.
Click to expand...

Change to Pet Plan now. They will then cover her for illness as well till she is 25!
 
I have never insured past horses but have insured my current horse mainly because he's worth a bit of money nowadays. It's darn expensive though, so far I would have paid £2k in insurance and not yet claimed... which is good but imagine what I could have done with £2k... that's the devil of insurance I guess.
 
I went for high excess as that means lower premiums, but I would never not insure: Boomerang cost over £5000 and was then PTS. I could never have afforded that.
 
I also don't insure older horses; you've got to ask if it is fair to subject an older/elderly horse to what could possibly be painful or prolonged treatment or surgery and what impact that would have on the quality/length of its existing life. I also worry that it gives the vets free rein to do unnecessary investigations as they will do all in their power to keep the animal going on some occasions.
 
Ravenwood said:
I have never insured a horse although it is very silly of me not to have public liability/third party. Fortunately for me, I have never had a big vets bill either! Not to say it won't ever happen of course but I do have the savings to pay for one should it happen.

It does seem unfortunate that we have fallen into this culture of insuring everything which then gives all vets a free license to charge what they want. At some vets, its the first question they ask! Surely there is something wrong with this!!
Click to expand...

Ditto to every word!!!
 
Because, Despite being in perfect health and not ever having a serious illness, the fact that small insignificant things are not on his vets records means that Legs, feet, stomach, neck back wind and neurological problems will not be covered. I could just sell him on as I dont immediateily have £100 at hand (well I do, but it is allocated for things but can be utalised) , but I feel that is irresponsible of me.

So no point.

We do have liability insurance though.
 
I have always had insurance...in fact it's the first thing i buy for any of my horses as i couldn't afford a huge vet bill, simples.

I admit i was with E&L (i can hear the gasps and groans from here!!) but apart from being slow to pay out they covered a £650 bill for a cough, 2k for a fractured knee and 3k for a laminitis claim.
I paid them 2.5k over the 5 years and as you can see I've had a lot more off them.
My previous horse broke her leg only after being insured for 2 months and E&L paid out market value and the vets bills.
I'm now with Petplan as my new vet wouldn't deal with E&L...they do have a bit of a reputation!!??

It's not just vet bills, insurance includes public liability which is a rule of our yard that horses have to be insured PL up to 3M!!! It covers tack and personal cover if you were to fall and couldn't go to work etc

I know that you can think of better things to spend the £35 or whatever your premiums are a month and if you can afford the vet bills, replacement tack etc at a drop of a hat then your a lucky bunny.

Touch wood i haven't had to use my insurance and i hope i never will on Chaos but I'd rather pay my premium each month than have to find hundreds or thousand of pounds and also run the risk of having to turn around to a vet and say sorry but i can't afford to get my horse treated.
 
Sedgemoor Chaos said:
I have always had insurance...in fact it's the first thing i buy for any of my horses as i couldn't afford a huge vet bill, simples.

I admit i was with E&L (i can hear the gasps and groans from here!!) but apart from being slow to pay out they covered a £650 bill for a cough, 2k for a fractured knee and 3k for a laminitis claim.
I paid them 2.5k over the 5 years and as you can see I've had a lot more off them.
My previous horse broke her leg only after being insured for 2 months and E&L paid out market value and the vets bills.
I'm now with Petplan as my new vet wouldn't deal with E&L...they do have a bit of a reputation!!??

It's not just vet bills, insurance includes public liability which is a rule of our yard that horses have to be insured PL up to 3M!!! It covers tack and personal cover if you were to fall and couldn't go to work etc

I know that you can think of better things to spend the £35 or whatever your premiums are a month and if you can afford the vet bills, replacement tack etc at a drop of a hat then your a lucky bunny.

Touch wood i haven't had to use my insurance and i hope i never will on Chaos but I'd rather pay my premium each month than have to find hundreds or thousand of pounds and also run the risk of having to turn around to a vet and say sorry but i can't afford to get my horse treated.
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One thing I found when looking into insurance recently is that tack is only insured if it is in a LOCKED tack room and there are less than 5 or 10 people with access to it. A few even said that a livery yard communal tack room would not be covered. Even my tack in my LOCKED tack locker secured to a wall in a communal tack room was not covered if there were more than 10 people with access to the tack storage.

There are probably a lot of folk out there paying out for insurance who prob are NOT covered as the animals have existing conditions.
 
Beeeecause when I bought him off the track the vetting to get insurance would've cost as much as the horse itself. So we didn't bother, and now I've had him a while we've considered it. But it's expensive, so I will look into insuring him when the money is available. Our pony is insured, and a good thing too cuz he's had some fairly large vet bills in his time :)
 
I've owned my own horses for 27 years & stopped insuring them about 20 years ago, I've been lucky enough to never have any big vet bills, I think that over the years the money I've saved must run to thousands of pounds, so it's been worth it for me. It is a risk though.
I am a gold BHS member which covers me for 3rd party.
 
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