Question about leases and insurance

[gertie06]

Hi all,

We’re about to lease a pony. It’s a full lease (lease fee + expenses + insurance) on a pony that belongs to a family in our barn. It’s a great situation and everybody is happy.

We are required to insure the pony for mortality/surgery/major medical. My insurance agent is saying that they can only write a policy for the owner of the horse, not the lessee. In other words, the pony cannot be added to my policy. This doesn’t sound right to me. Seems like people insure their leased horses all the time. Does anyone have experience on this?

Thanks!

[Pokerface]

Not personal experience, but a friend of mine has the insurance policy on her leased horse and the leasers cut her a check quarterly to pay for the insurance. I think this is more because she wants to be sure that he’s insured and less because it’s harder to GET leasers to be able to insure horses.

[atl_hunter]

I used Hallmark. They wrote the policy to me, however, the horse’s owner had to be listed as the beneficiary (because they would not pay out mortality to a lessee).

[gertie06]

@atl_hunter

I used Hallmark. They wrote the policy to me, however, the horse’s owner had to be listed as the beneficiary (because they would not pay out mortality to a lessee).

Now this makes sense. This is what I would expect to happen.

[Didi]

My insurance company did the same ats atl_hunter’s. They required a copy of the lease agreement, then made the policy out to me with owner as beneficiary. I use The Hartford. I have done this more than once, BTW.

[541hunter]

My horse was leased out last year. I had my insurance agent renew my normal policy (through XL) with me as the beneficiary, but send the bill to the lessee. This arrangement could have been tricky if a major medical event had occurred though because per our contract, she was responsible for medical costs, but the insurance was in my name. To be honest I’m not sure what would have happened in that situation since I think my policy just reimburses, but if the bill was in lessee’s name would they have paid out? Looking back I probably should have asked my insurance guy how to set that up better.

[Libby2563]

What you want is to have yourself (the lessee) listed as the insured for medical claims and the horse owner listed as the “loss payee” for the mortality insurance.

I insured a horse that I was leasing through two different companies (Berkley Equine and American Equine Insurance Group), and both were willing to do that. The one problem I had was that some correspondence, bills, and claim checks were sent to the owner instead of to me, even though I had made it very clear that I should be the point of contact for those.

A few insurers, including XL, only allow mortality at the value of your annual lease fee and will not cover “care leases” or “free leases” at all.

[BeeHoney]

It is correct that you can’t insure something you don’t own. In past situations I have had the insurance in my name and had the person leasing the horse contractually responsible for reimbursing me with a check (or paying the bill themselves). Different insurance companies may handle it differently, but with the company I used this seemed to be the easiest way.

[BITSA]

@Pokerface

Not personal experience, but a friend of mine has the insurance policy on her leased horse and the leasers cut her a check quarterly to pay for the insurance. I think this is more because she wants to be sure that he’s insured and less because it’s harder to GET leasers to be able to insure horses.

This is what I did when we leased out my DD’s pony

[Daventry]

Everyone’s advice is correct here. The owner of the pony needs to be listed as the beneficiary but you should be able to opt to pay for the insurance directly or have the owner pay and then reimburse.

[TrotFence]

I’ve seen it both ways. I went through Blue Bridle Insurance Agency. All they required was the lease and the owner was listed as loss payee.

[sandsarita]

@atl_hunter

I used Hallmark. They wrote the policy to me, however, the horse’s owner had to be listed as the beneficiary (because they would not pay out mortality to a lessee).

Thats how we did it when I leased my horse out