Now that I am the proud owner of a 2nd awesome sauce baby horse I have begun to think about insurance again. I never insured Houston but I had been strongly considering insuring Annie as I can’t really replace her. She is worth way more than I paid for her at this point and while my vet has a really cool program for colic surgery I would like to have additional major medical coverage on both creatures.
If I am lucky I will never have to use it but I don’t want to be in the position of not being able to pay for a life saving procedure or even diagnostics. At Karen’s recommendation I decided to contact THIS for some quotes. I liked the options they had to offer and ended up getting a binder on Luna. Once I recover from the purchase of a new pony Annie will also get a policy.
To get major medical  you have to have mortality. For me this meant 3.25% of Luna’s purchase price plus the major medical premium. I opted to get $15,000 of coverage which might be over kill but the premium wasn’t drastically different and it reduced the co-pay % down from 20% to 15%. In the grand scheme of things the monthly cost isn’t very high and could be worth its weight in gold!
I have to say that my experience getting insurance for Luna was way more pleasant than any other process I have gone through for cars, house, or even myself. THIS has great reps and I think it took all of 3 emails (I couldn’t call due to work) and then one phone call and I had a binder letter. Do yourself a favor and make sure that you find a good broker if you are thinking about getting coverage for your horse(s).
Do you all have your horses insured? What are your thoughts on opting to get it? If so what coverage is most important to you?
P.S. I have created a petition that will go to FEI regarding a proposed rule change that would take out the grey area or personal discretion pertaining to the Eventing blood rule. If you also think that a change needs to happen you should think about signing and sharing the petition.
I love the options that THIS offers. I have such piece of mind knowing Eli is covered. Glad they had options that worked for you!
Thanks for the help 🙂
I got Frankie insured the day I brought him home! Luckily he’s a pretty sturdy guy, but I feel so much better knowing that he’s covered in case of emergency. Like you said, hopefully I’ll never have to use it.
Better safe than sorry 🙂
I have Roger insured with Broadstone and it gives me great peace of mind because he’s a little accident prone. Plus, Broadstone’s customer service rocks and their annual premiums aren’t terribly expensive.
That’s good to know. They are always trying to maim themselves it seems!
I also have mine through Broadstone with XL Specialty and I can tell you that the premium shown in your photo is higher than mine and my deductible is lower as well as no time limit on medical and I have no coinsurance on some procedures. So when you buy for Annie you might want to shop around a little more. Mine is insured for the same $15,000 amount.
I’m probably dropping major medical next year. It doesn’t cover things like joint injections, rehab costs, etc so between the per-incident deductible, not covering the exam fee, and having to pay 20% of the bill anyway, I’m just keeping the mortality so I could replace them if they died and self-insuring for the rest of the $600+ a year.
Broadstone rocks. Totally agreed. Super customer service and reasonable premiums. We were insured Broadstone then covered by The Hartford. Horrible to have to use the mortality policy, but they made an awful time much easier by just keeping the paperwork and requirements very simple.
I just requested a quote, because Grandpas need insurance, too, right? …Assuming he’s insurable. 🙂
I’m not sure what their age cut off is but some companies won’t insure past a certain age and existing conditions usually aren’t covered. Let me know what they say 🙂
having paid almost 10k for colic surgery and aftercare, I advise EVERYONE to get colic surgery insurance. SO SO SO cheap in comparison to the actual cost, and NEVER cancel it. I took Yankee off insurance once I stopped competing him and that was a terrible idea. I don’t feel the need to insure for loss of use or death like most people, but colic surgery insurance is so worth it to me, having been through it and never wanting to again. Yanks doesn’t qualify now but B is on it for sure. I might insure B for major medical, because he is super accident prone. Heard great things about Broadstone
I should contact THIS — I mostly had older, broken down trainwreck horses so insurance wasn’t really on my radar, but I really need to change that now!
You should. I can give you my brokers info if you want 🙂 she was awesome.
Yes yes yes. Unfortunately I’ve had to deal with insurance and the unthinkable and while it is impossible to place a true monetary value on the animals you love so much, having that major med + mortality is wise. I’ve never insured for an extravagant amount, but enough so that we’re covered in the event of a surgery or other expensive issue and should they die (sorry) that I’d receive a little lump sum (getting that check is positively horrid, I sat on in for days). That way may annual premiums are low (~$400-500). I’ve had great experience with Broadstone/Hartford. They both paid out fully back in the day when my upper level horse had leg surgery and more recently when Spots had his final issues. It’s really really good to insure them young too when they’re nice and healthy with no exclusions 🙂 You can always up their value if they turn out to be an upper level superstah…Sooner the better tho, I’ve also learned my lesson waiting to cover my horse, having them sustain an expensive injury (read: 2 weeks at Davis) and having to pay it allllll out of pocket because I didn’t want to shell out $400 for the policy, not worth it, the horse gods always know I feel like, argh!
Thx for sharing your experience.
Yeah, can you? My email is lrstrid@gmail.com ☺ I’m at the point now where while I didn’t spend much buying/breeding my young ones, but now with training they’re worth substantially more and I couldn’t afford to replace either of them if something happened. So they should really be insured!
Sent
I haven’t done this. I’m starting to think about it because Courage is finally getting to the point in his training where he isn’t easily and cheaply replaceable. I mean, obviously he means a lot to me, but no amount of insurance will help that side of it.
Good things to consider.
Yeah from a feels perspective insurance can’t help us. But it can help when making the decision on if you will do x crazy $ diagnostic and it could help with getting another horse down the road.
I have Miles insured through Great American, because as you’ve said, I can’t really replace him at this moment in time. It’s a good peace of mind.
I kind of want to do a poll or something about what everyone’s premiums are. Anonymous of course but I think a chart would be interesting to see.
I signed your petition and shared it on FB. Good work for trying to do something to help the horses!
Thanks Heidi. I doubt FEI will listen but if no one does or says anything because they don’t think it’ll make a difference it’s guaranteed to never change.
I should have insured Ramone and did not and got very lucky! I will not take my luck for granted with the next one.
Emi is insured for major medical and mortality. It’s really nice for peace of mind and compared to the cost of a big vet bill or the money I’d be out of she passed away….it’s minimal!
I used Markel for Marcus. Frankie is not insured yet. Because I lease M, I have to keep in insured for X amount with MM. Our premium is astronomical because he events and he is 17.
That being said I probably will insure Frankie in the near future. Markel requires you have a small mortality policy if you have MM. I’ve been really happy with them for the 7 or so years I’ve used them.
I originally got insurance on my first horse (one before Marcus) because I felt like in the event of an emergency, I wanted to base my decisions not on what I could afford or not afford, but rather on what was best for the horse. I felt like insurance took quite a bit of the monetary aspect out of emergency decisions for me.
I have Markel on Holly. They are easy to deal with I did everything online and they were the best deal 3 years ago, but they fought me on how much I could insure her for, and eventually I’ll shop around for another company that I can do a higher mortality for (or at least fight them again), as she is worth way more than 3 years ago. Insurance often is the difference between being able to afford treatment and putting a horse down for many of us on tight budgets.
My horses aren’t insured but this was very good info for future reference 🙂 Petition signed.
I have 1 out of 4 insured currently. Two of them are so old the premium was outrageous, and the other isn’t valuable enough to be worth it just yet. I primarily hold mortality insurance only on my horses. I’ve found any time I collected on major medical in the past, exclusions were applied against the mortality.
I insure through Equisure though, and since they are a USEF partner, I do get a certain amount of major medical coverage for free as a bonus. So that’s nice.
I did once have to collect on a horse that passed away and it went smoothly. I hope to never ever have to collect again though.
I’ve had P insured since before he got on the trailer from Ocala to Charlotte. While he was a bit on the expensive side for an OTTB, his value now has increased substantially due to training and competing to where I wouldn’t be able to replace him. I’ve used Broadstone Equine Insurance Agency and they have been fantastic about renewing his policy, explaining options and changes, and substantiating value increases. My policies are through XL, as they had the most reasonable deductible and premium for what I wanted. I have major medical/surgical and mortality on him. Thankfully I haven’t had to use it, but it’s definitely worth the peace of mind!