# Horse Insurance



## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

I assume that you are asking about medical insurance, not mortality.
This is a very personal decision that each person must make that revolves around a practical, financial decision about how much you are willing, or able, to spend on a sick or injured horse and the horse's potential quality of life, and not how special the horse is to you. It is helpful to make a decision about this now, before an incident occurs (hopefully never), rather than having to decide in the emotion of the moment.
All our horses were purchased for between $500 and $3500. We do not insure our horses (our 19 and 20 year mares are too old to be insured anyway). Instead of paying for insurance, we set aside $$s every month in an emergency savings account. We have also set a limit for care. In our case, we first draw the line at having to trailer to the vet school. If our vet can treat the horse on our farm, we'll do it. If not, and it's life threatening or the horse's quality of life will be poor, we'll (very sadly) put the horse down.


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## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

I bought my horse right around the time that DH and I bought our house, so our reserves were very low. I opted to get mortality at that time just in case, but once we had our emergency fund built back up to a comfortable level I didn't renew the policy. I think insurance is great when you might not have the cash on hand to cover an expensive mishap or colic surgery, but not really necessary if you have saved a good sized cushion of money for things like that. Depending on your policy, it might be useful for smaller mishaps (several hundred dollars). Fortunately, my horse doesn't seem to be overly accident prone and I never had a vet visit that cost more than the deductible on my policy.


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## churumbeque (Dec 20, 2009)

You can't get medical without also getting life insurance. I don't think they will insure a horse unless it is worth a bit more. Some companies won't insure unless it's valued at 15k and others will do less.


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## beau159 (Oct 4, 2010)

Last year I decided to insure my horses for the first time. I just did a mortality plan that also had $5,000 coverage for emergency colic surgery. 

Basically in my research at the time, it is VERY expensive to have major medical on a horse. Even though I have Red valued at $10,000, it was not worth the $$$ to me to do major medical, for how much it would cost. The mortality/colic plan was quite reasonable though. 

It is up to you if you want to insure a horse or not. I currently have my coming 4-year-old insured for $2,500 but I will be increasing that as his training progresses. 

There is no one value when you should insure your horse. It just depends on what YOU can or cannot replace. 

If your horse would pass tomorrow, do you have $2,000 to replace her with another? Or do you want the insurance money to help? That's the decision that only you can make. 

In my situation, it's not worth the yearly premium to do medical insurance on a $2,000 horse ... or even my $10,000 horse. Again, but that's up to you to decide, but it is quite expensive. Another thing to keep in mind is that insurance companies DO care if your horse has a pre-existing condition. That's one of the reasons why I decided to insure my colt now while he is young and has no problems; he'll never have a "pre-exisint condition" because I'm never going to lapse the coverage. 

I researched a lot of companies and I went with Horizon because they gave me the best rate and also the highest emergency colic surgery amount.


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## Woodhaven (Jan 21, 2014)

We have fire and lightening ins. with the farm policy. I don't insure any horse for medical or life. As others said I have money set aside for emergencies and a specific amount that I will pay. 
One thing I do have and think it is very important is liablility insurance. I have it on the farm policy and also through my Ont Equine membership.


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