This may be a pipe dream, but does anyone know of a horse insurance company that will cover pre-existing conditions? When I say cover I mean cover past injuries or surgeries should they re-occur. Also is there a company that will let you insure above and beyond what the animal is worth? I know in my past searches over the years I have not found anything like this.
You might, but you WILL pay a BIG PREMIUM for anything like “pre-existing condition” exclusion. The reason is you’re asking the carrier to buy an “injured pig in a poke.” Without extensive examination the carrier does not KNOW what risk it’s assuming and therefore can’t price that risk realistically.
As to value, you can purchase “defined value coverage” but it, too, is VERY expensive. The reason is anytime you insure property (and horses ARE property) above it’s market value there is a “moral risk” that an insured will intentionally put the property at risk of loss. The purpose of insurance is to make a policy holder economically “whole” after a loss. It is not a “lottery” to see if they can make some money off a loss. There is a real and substantial risk of policy holder fraud if they have a profit motive. There have been some very prominent cases of “horse killing for profit” over the years and the companies know this so if you want this coverage you’ll pay dearly for it.
G.
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I think what you’re actually asking is if there is an insurance company that will allow a higher major medical limit than mortality. The answer is “sometimes” but most have a clause allowing them to just pay the value of a mortality claim if a major medical claim is higher, and you absorb the rest.
I no longer carry major medical. The caps and restrictions were too low.
Maybe a good idea would be to save what you would be paying in the premium every month and put it into a savings account as a way to cover things?
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I think it is possible to get a defined benefit insurance for a specific condition, like colic. But if your horse has already colicked once, it would either be very difficult or very expensive–or both–to get that horse insured.
As a poster above said, you’re probably better off saving the money that you’d otherwise spend on super-costly insurance, and using it to “self-insure,” at least then it comes to a horse that has pre-existing conditions. And then rely on payment plans with your vet if you don’t have enough saved up at the time of a costly, subsequent veterinary procedure.
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I think everyone has already covered your main questions. I will add, though, that it is possible to get exclusions lifted. For example, my agent lobbied to remove an exclusion on one of my horses after he had gone 2 full years without any symptoms/recurrence. They removed it and the price didn’t go up.
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I had this same experience with a suspensory injury. After 2 years of soundness and return to full work, the exclusion for that leg was removed. This was through Great American.
Check out Star H insurance. They have no cap on major medical. I have a horse insured for mortality for a certain amount, yet the major medical add on is for twice his value. They have no cap. Other companies do.
These guys appear to be brokers, not carriers. They seem to represent the Hartford. The other company, American Equine Insurance Group, does not appear to be a carrier but something else. It has no A.M. Best rating under this name. I’d walk softly and do some research before I went any further.
G.
American Equine Insurance Group is the company that underwrites horse insurance on behalf of Argonaut Insurance Company–that’s why AEIG has no AM Best rating. Argonaut is a solid insurer represented by Star H and many other equine insurance agents/brokers.
As far as pre-existing conditions, it is at the underwriter’s discretion whether or not to apply exclusions above and beyond the limitations of the policy itself. That decision is based upon a number of factors, including whether the condition is curable, whether it has a high relapse rate, and what history the carrier has in paying claims for the condition.
I believe The Hartford is the only US carrier that currently allows medical coverage limits in excess of the horse’s insured value. For the rest of the insurers, the prospect of possibly paying a $10k medical claim on a $2k horse doesn’t make good business sense, so restrictions apply to keep that from happening.
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Correct. The underwriter is The Hartford. I have had thousands of dollars of major medical claims this year and they paid all within 3 days. 3!
I think that you would be very hard-pressed to find a company who did this, and as an above poster noted, you would end up paying quite a bit for it.
What really irritates me about the equine insurance industry is that they treat every renewal year as a new policy year, i.e., conditions that occurred in the previous year are now pre-existing conditions and excluded at renewal. I know that a lot of small animal insurance companies do that but not all. The insurance company I used for one of my dogs did NOT do this and and happily paid for cancer treatment not just once but twice. I have actually called them and encouraged them to look into whether they could expand to equine and the person I talked to on the phone said that all of the horse owners who work for the company have been trying to get that to happen forever! I’m assuming that the financials just don’t work out though . . . .
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Can’t help on the pre-existing condition issue, but I have my horses covered by The Hartford because they don’t cap MM at Mortality value. I had a MM claim with them this year and they’ve been outstanding to deal with.
Just curious — how bad was the injury and what discipline was he doing? Does the injury still show up on a sonogram?
Thank you! I’m much more interested in the soundness of the carrier than the agent, but agent soundness is a valuable thing and to be carefully checked. I see it as a 51-49 relationship. 
The Hartford’s practice of not capping losses is completely sustainable if the premium structure and policy terms and conditions support it.
G.
He had a small lesion on the high hind suspensory. However, after 3 months of stall rest, the lesion was pretty much healed but he was still off. So, a bone marrow transfer was done (fully covered) and two months later he was cleared to start rehab. Prior to the injury he had done rusty stirrup and 2’6" hunters. When he returned to showing (almost 2 years after the onset of the injury), he did the AA hunters. After the first rated show, I took him back the vet clinic for a full work-up including ultrasound to make sure he was up to carrying a full work load. (He was!)
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You can get an exclusion removed! I’ve had colic remover before and I’m actually in the process of having colic removed again (horse coliced when bff was dying and spent 3 days with a medical colic at Morven Park) and what was also found on a bone scan plus EPM that was mentioned on a visit…all was the feet being so out of whack and causing overall soreness.
I have to double check the policy paperwork… if I can find it… But I am pretty sure a pre-existing condition (DDFT injury) that was excluded on Little Mare’s 2017 - 2018 coverage fell off as an exclusion on her 2018 - 2019 renewal since the injury is now over two years old.
As others have pointed out, most won’t cover ongoing pre-existing conditions, and if they do they’re generally expensive. They’re insurance companies, in it to make more money off the majority of people who take it out than they have to spend. It’s “bad business” for them to take on cases that might compromise that. It doesn’t mean insurance is bad (it can be very, very helpful in some cases!) but you need to go into deciding on a policy remembering that.
You even have to be careful with the conditions that really shouldn’t be considered “pre-existing” but will be by some insurance companies. For example, I’ve seen cases where an animal has a case of something like an ear infection that was treated and resolved and doesn’t have another problem for years, yet some insurance companies will refuse to cover any subsequent infections . as they’ll consider the animal “prone to it” and therefore “pre-existing” problem.
Sometimes you can even get a blanket exclusion put in place, like a animal that has a skin allergy in some cases will not be covered for ANY skin problems regardless of whether they’re allergy related or not if the insurance was taken out after the first skin issue. Some insurance companies will also blanket exclude some conditions in particular breeds, so read the fine print carefully.
I got caught out myself by an insurance company refusing to continue to cover my horse after she reached 13 years even though I’d never made a claim. Turns out in the fine print (which I had sent to me) there was a clause that said they could decide not to renew your insurance for any reason they saw fit (and apparently they didn’t like insuring “older horses” although they never told me that when I took out the policy.) Joke was on them, they would have gotten far more out of me in insurance policies than I ever would have claimed on that horse, so I was lucky.
Anyway, short version is insurance can be really valuable, especially for those unforseen things (like major surgery) where you may need to come up with thousands of dollars quickly or for anything that turns out to be a long term expensive problem (like cushings). It can even be valuable with the exclusions depending on how extensive they area. But, read the fine print really, really carefully and if anyone from the company says they’ll include things you specifically want covered (or agree to lift the exclusion after a certain amount of time), get it in writing with their name attached to it. That’s extremely important. If the person you spoke to doesn’t record what they’ve said or leaves the company you can be really stuck if you don’t have what they’ve said in writing.
