Horse Health Insurance

[Firefly8949]

Hi y’all. Insurance question here: I work at a small animal veterinary practice and am familiar with pet health insurance, most commonly PetPlan, Nationwide, Embrace, healthy paws, etc. I have been looking into pet health insurance for my horse, and have thus far been unable to find a company that specializes in this. I have found a TON that are for liability (for barn owners), and insurance that covers the owner from theft, etc. but none that are specifically horse HEALTH insurance. does anyone currently have health insurance for their horse (s), or is anyone familiar with any reputable companies?

thank you!

[Simkie]

I don’t think that exists for equines.

You can get surgical coverage, and major medical coverage, and loss of use, and death. But coverage for the day to day routine veterinary costs of owning a horse?? Nope. That’s called a savings account

If you’re looking for major medical, surgical, mortality, etc, I used to go through Blue Bridle. They’re one of many brokers, plans are then underwritten by a handful of companies. I stopped covering my horses, though, when the majority of underwriters stopped covering “cheap” horses (I think the lowest value went to $10k?) and the plan costs also rose.

Major medical will cover unusual events like lameness or colic to various extent (depending on plan/underwriter/etc) but will not cover things like vaccines or dentistry or often things like joint injections.

[IPEsq]

Equine mortality policies can sometimes have a surgical or major medical rider attached. This isn’t exactly “health insurance”, though. Although preexisting conditions are generally excluded for the other pet plans, they sometimes cover chronic conditions. I don’t think any equine policy will cover a chronic or congenital condition after maybe it’s first time discovery/dx/treatment. Of those that exist, they are becoming more and more restrictive with copays, limits on certain diagnostics or treatment, etc.

[alisa]

There are tons! I use EMO and like them very much. I know others that have used Cheval. I think if you search for equine mortality, you will find medical insurance is pretty common.

[Simkie]

Hmmm, my previous post was held, probably because I included a link for Blue Bridle. It’ll probably show up at some point?

But health insurance for horses isn’t a thing like it is for people and small pets. You can do major medical and mortality, which covers death and unexpected things like colic or lameness or illness. It will not cover routine care or pre-existing conditions, and often restricts dollar amounts on diagnostics.

It’s also not inexpensive and many underwriters stopped covering the “cheap” horses several years ago.