Health Ins + kissing spine

[Tulips1990]

Hello!
I have a question- I’m very new to horse ownership and also health insurance.
I have a 7yr old mare, recently showed to have kissing spine (minor)

She is currently leased by another woman, who has insurance policy on her.
We recently proceeded to have a vet out and Xray her to take a look (didn’t put this under the policy, since i agreed to pay for it)
If this girl decides to not lease again, and terminates the policy- what should i do?

I guess my focus is, what happens down the road when i need to look further into my horses kissing spine and possible procedures- will this be considered pre-existing condition under my ins policy and will it never get covered if i ever have to have surgery on her?

Vet claims this kissing spine is very minor and she wouldn’t hold my horse back from anything and it’s manageable. But later on, it will get worse and may need a closer look further on.

Thank you!

[ryansgirl]

When you fill out your renewal application there is a question on the form that asks if the horse was seen by a vet in the past year for non-routine stuff. In this case the answer is yes. You can lie and say no (I wouldn’t recommend that at all!) but remember the insurance company has access to the vets files (since there is a policy on the mare) so theoretically they can find out about the Kissing Spines. I’m not sure how it would work since the person leasing her has the policy though.

In my mare’s case yes her Kiissing Spines was considered preexisting and excluded for all things related to it. Insurance companies are pretty tough nowadays which is why I opted to drop it (& due to my mares age which made it expensive and I hardly had anything they would cover).

[silverdog]

If your mare needs treatment ie surgery for her KS do call and report it. Then your leaser can decide if they want to do the surgery. Insurance isn’t going to pay for a whole lot else in a KS diagnosis in my experience. If the surgery is done, you are looking at 8mths to a year (again in my experience) to get her back undersaddle and going well again. So your leasers need to know that. If they chose not to let their insurance policy foot the bill then stop the lease and decide what you are going to do. If the horse is symptomatic (sore back, not going forward and other things) it is not fair to keep her in work until the problem is treated. In fact it can lead to other problems. The money spent on my horse’s surgery is the best money I have ever spent at the vet and the recovery/rehab is not too bad. Good luck.