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| Author |
Message |
    
Dr. Carol Artlett
| | Posted on Wednesday, Oct 27, 1999 - 2:05 pm: |   |
Does anyone have any experiences (good or bad) with an equine insurance company?
Carol. |
Imogen Bertin
| | Posted on Wednesday, Oct 27, 1999 - 2:34 pm: | |
I don't have personal experience but it's normal practice here in Ireland that the horse must
a) die
b) have to be put down on the recommendation of the vet or
c) be listed by 2 vets as unusable for the purpose for which it is insured
before you would get any money. However if you mean public liability (eg for your horse kicking someone or backing into a car etc.) that's a whole horrible other kettle of fish.
Imogen |
Rosalie A. Kita
| | Posted on Thursday, Oct 28, 1999 - 8:21 am: | |
Hi Carol,
I have checked into equine insurance to see if horse owner could buy some kind of protection other than what Imogen described above. It looks like coverage here in the US is simular. I raise proformance horses and have had several horriable experences while horses were left in the care of trainers. So I went in search of insurance to protect my investments. Many performance horse organizations advertize for insurance companies in their magizines, these insurance companies sell Care Custody & Control coverage, I was curious and inquired to several of these agents, it was explained to me that this coverage isn't for horse owners it's for horse professionals to protect them against horse owners. When I enquired about coverage to protect my self against things like gross neglect and medical malpractice it seems there isn't any protection offered.It becomes a civil matter and your expected to fight it out in court. The coverage Imogen speeks of will protect your investment unless it looks suspicious, then it's up to you to prove your losses were cause by neglieance on the part of the person providing care. If you have horse's that are always in your care and have quality people such as vet and farrier looking after them you should be safe. I hope my honesty hasn't offended anyone and if anyone know's of a insurance company that will provide me coverage that protects me against people who I hire to provide care please let me know because I have be told their isn't any such coverage. |
Dr. Carol Artlett
| | Posted on Thursday, Oct 28, 1999 - 11:00 am: | |
Thanks Rosalie and Imogen for the feedback. I have also heard that a horse can be placed on homeowners insurance, which I am currently looking into. My biggest concern is liability as you know Americans are law suit happy and I am a somewhat nieve foreigner temporarily residing here. Don't want any nasty little surprizes in the mail.
Carol. |
Rosalie A. Kita
| | Posted on Friday, Oct 29, 1999 - 8:48 am: | |
Hi Carol,
I think you've been mislead into thinking Americans are sue happy, I can guarantee there are more victims out there that haven't been compensated than have. The majority of Americans are honest compassionate and giving people our track record proves it. Horses are fight animals by nature, you never know when or where they might shy from something. Knowing this is also knowing other can be put at risk. Liability insurance is a small price to pay if someone gets hurt by our horses, I know how horriable I would feel if one of my horses hurt someone and to be responsible for the financial burden on top of it could be devastating. Many people are hurt through ignorence, they know absolutly nothing about a horses and have no fear of them putting them at risk. Experienced horse people have a lot of respect for a horse that's what reduces our chances of getting hurt. And yes accidents do happen and it's best to have insurance protection. Welcome to our country, and best of luck to you and your horse, you should meet some really nice horse people, there are many out there. |
Dr. Carol Artlett
| | Posted on Friday, Oct 29, 1999 - 2:27 pm: | |
Rosalie, I guess I have a warped ideas about Americans and their apparent happiness to sue anything and everything. I come from Oz, where the extreme stories make the news, such as the Macdonald's incident etc. Although the trend seems to be to take no responsibility if possible.
But Rosalie you are right, I have met many very nice people where I keep my boy and he is well looked after.
Carol |
Imogen Bertin
| | Posted on Saturday, Oct 30, 1999 - 1:58 pm: | |
Carol
Here in Ireland the only way to get public liability insurance is... join the BRITISH Horse Society... That (in my view) is because although Ireland is sue-happy (sorry, Rosita) like the US, overall we're a small percentage of the BHS membership, and Britain isn't so sue-happy, so they can afford to carry our public liability insurance problems (because Britain has the National Health Service, so human injuries don't involve major medical bills). Check out breed associations, riding clubs etc. They may be able to provide the liability insurance.
The main thing is, if you are dealing with a chancer and they find you have the insurance to fight the case, they will probably back off. Alternatively if it really was your fault and someone or something was injured, it's nice to be able to provide some recompense through insurance.
All the best
Imogen |
Gerald P. Goulder
| | Posted on Monday, Apr 10, 2000 - 7:03 pm: | |
Hello folks.
I hope I'm not out of line...but I do think the American jurisprudence system encourages litigation because plaintiffs can choose contingent fee attorneys and not pay any "fees" only a part of settlement, if any. Also, there is no cost assessed against the loser in American lawsuits.
As a business person (and attorney) who has been burned by litigation in my businesses before, I highly recommend using a mediation/arbitration clause in all of your contracts to "courtproof" yourself.
The leading equine dispute service is Equine Dispute Resolution Service at www.equinedispute.org which has sample mediation and arbitration clauses. |
claire sidebottom
| | Posted on Tuesday, Apr 11, 2000 - 3:29 pm: | |
I have my horses insured with NFU (UK). They have been excellent. I took out the policy in March on a mare, added her unexpected foal when he was 30 days old (the earliest they accept them) and then submitted a claim when he injured his leg in November. We pay just over £34 for both horses per month and they paid out £2,000 plus in vets/hospital fees without a shiver! Good service or what. The excess and the livery fees for his stay in the hospital were excluded. They are insured for personal liability, vets fees, rider injury and death. We haven't got loss of use or tack cover. |
James Hemby (Jamesbh)
| | Posted on Friday, Jan 4, 2002 - 1:31 pm: | |
Anyone,
I am a reasonably new horse owner. I have a 9 yo Thoroughbred gelding that we use for hunter hacking and training for dressage. I am perplexed about insuring this horse and don't want to go to insurance carriers for answers to elementary questions.
Can anyone point me to a reference on equine insurance in the US (i.e., kinds of insurance available, applicability to a 9 yo pleasure/competition horse, etc.)?
Thanks |
Virginia Vosburg (Ginger)
| | Posted on Friday, Jan 4, 2002 - 5:29 pm: | |
We have insured our horses with AgriRisk http://agririsk.com/ and pleased with the service. Rates are low, too - about 3%. Ginger |
Fiona Farrell (Lala)
| | Posted on Saturday, Jan 5, 2002 - 6:37 pm: | |
Dear James,
Just curious, why don't you want to ask Qs of insurers? I can understand not trusting not getting a straight answer because they have vested interests (of course that may not be your reason), however you might consider calling several, depending on how many hours you want to devote to this and checking answers against what they each give for consistency or a "party line."
Good luck, here are some more suggestions:
I don't have any references to recommend, only the store of knowledge I have built up by calling insurers and asking for applications and policies and comparing them (but those were for CC&C when thinking of running a stable). A good source (no pun intended) for list of insurers, both agencies and the actual insurance companies, is the Bloodhorse Source Book, also probably classified ads in large equine periodicals but probably narrow lists due to fields of interests and large fees if large circulations. Other sources would be your local farm credit, and Farm Bureaus have equine insurance available through their related insurance wing -- however I found their CC&C rates higher than equine only insurers -- but rates are not always everything -- gotta thinkk about customer service, etc. -- as good as Claire's in UK would be nice ideal to aim for
Each state has regulatory agencies that govern insurance, you could call them or look at their web sites, ditto re state attorneys general numbers/sites.
The number of insurers who insure horses is quite limited. I am about to insure my 9 yo TB maiden broodmare who is due to foal in March. I'll be calling many of the insurance providers and insurance agencies in Source Book as my third step. My first one is going to be to print out the sample policies from Virginia's agririsk references (an agency not an actual insurer, it appears) and then do a web search for equine mortality insurance.
If what I find would be useful to share with the list I'll be happy to post info. Expect it in a couple of weeks.
Fiona |
Monique Gatt
Member
Username: Monie
Post Number: 19
Registered: 2-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003 - 9:53 am: | |
Can anyone help me with some info or horse insurance? Do many of you insure your horses? What kind of policies do you normally have? The only insurance coy that did horse policies here has just decided they will not be renewing our policies. Most of us here had a'horse & rider & 3rd party policy. We don't even have certificates of ownership!!! |
Imogen Bertin
Member
Username: Imogen
Post Number: 284
Registered: 9-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003 - 10:22 am: | |
Monique
Why don't you see if you can get insurance through joining the British Horse Society as an overseas member? They might cover Malta (since they do cover Ireland...)
Imogen |
