I’ve had a few people ask me to ride their horses for a small amount of $ (exercise rider/minor training). The barn owner says I have to have insurance. Is there any super basic, very cheap, insurance out there I can get?
You can usually get basic liability insurance that covers this through your home or auto insurance provider.
call a few of the equine insurers and see what they have offer in terms of liability insurance. I would also recommend that the owners also have liability insurance in case their horse hurts you.
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Didn’t even think about asking them. Thanks!
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The barn owner may be talking about medical insurance for yourself in case of injury. You are technically an employee or independent contractor. BO may not want to pay the cost of worker’s compensation to cover an injury. If he’s talking just liability, there are any number of companies that can help you. I have American Bankers. My agent is in CO with Goetz Insurers. Try googling: equine liability insurance. The USEF also has a policy that comes with membership.
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If the BO is not paying her she is not an employee or an independent contractor under the BO so she wouldn’t be obligated for any WC
Basic coverage for this sort of riding seems to run in the $500-600ish range a year. This includes CCC coverage, which you’d want. If there’s a trainer at the barn that can “supervise” you, then you may be able to be added onto their policy for less. I could add someone as an exercise rider (no teaching or anything else) onto my policy for something closer to $100 or 150 I think.
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gottagrey - Technically, you’re right. But, the BO owns the property and can be held liable for injuries on that property. My insurance specifically asks if trainers, etc. have liability insurance and if I carry workers comp. Same thing with a contractor whose employee is injured on your property. OP just needs to ask what insurance the owner wants.
Those that are paying OP should have their own liability insurance and can likely add OP to their policy for a nominal cost.
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What the OP will discover is that the liability insurance premium is likely higher than what she can earn putting in the rides. There is no “super cheap” liability insurance out there.
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^^ This. The minimum cost for a policy is usually not cheap. @IPEsq appears to have experience in this matter. Also pointing out that OP would now be a professional, although I’m sure she is aware, or may already be a pro.
That’s pretty much what I’m discovering. Frustrating. I just want to ride a couple horses at the barn I lease a horse at.
I dont compete anymore and dont plan on it, so being a professional or not doesn’t really affect me.
Liability insurance for the barn is probably based on gross receipts (income), and your activities may be viewed as an extension of the services offered by the barn. If the client’s horse got hurt while OP was riding, the barn has potential liability, so that “income” needs to be counted. You can thank litigious lawyers for that.
If you take money or other compensation for riding the horses, that makes you a professional.
BTDT. Yes, you will be a professional by USEF standards and, therefore, industry standards. That means you need to buy that kind of liability insurance. The smallest policy you can buy (mine is via Equisure) provides $1M in coverage and the premium depends on the amount of income generated from your business. If you make under $50K/year at this and do not board or haul horses as part of your biz) you can buy the cheapest stuff… and I think that’s about $700/year? Maybe less?
As much as you think this is overkill or not in your best interests, you might change your mind when someone wants to sue you for an activity you are doing for pocket money. That puts the shoe on the other foot! IMO, insurance is unnecessary only if you have nothing to lose.
I make way under that doing some part time exercise riding and a few other things (sometimes teaching/coaching) and it’s still going to be a minimum $500 to get the policy coverage you need. This year I added on hauling coverage which put me more in the $700 range or so. I don’t haul as a business but was doing enough runs to and from the equine hospital and similar local or emergency trips last year that I added it for peace of mind. It took having enough people requesting my services before I’d consider it–I didn’t want to lose money at the end of the day. At least not at first. Now that I’ve done this for a couple years as a side business, I’m less worried about losing money if I have to buy equipment or run up mileage when I’ve got some clients moving on for college, job changes, retired/injured horses, etc. because I suppose I could put the loss on my tax return even though it’s only a part time thing. I did want to show a profit to the IRS at first when I converted hobby income for the sport (grooming type services) over to business income (professional riding/training services).
There was a time when I was getting back into riding and didn’t have a horse that some barns didn’t want me picking up exercise rides for free without insurance. Which of course I wasn’t going to pay for without any income and I’m not sure I could have gotten it anyway telling the insurance company my receipts would be $0. But it meant I couldn’t ride at that barn.
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@IPEsq: Yup to all of it.
No more kids hacking horses for free or a bit of cash after school and jumping in baseball caps. Sigh. I learned a lot that way and enjoyed the nice part-time gig I rigged up.
You could also look at your USEF membership to see if that extra $25 liability policy will cover what the farm owner is looking for.
https://members.usef.org/content/documents/equisurepolicyinfo.pdf
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See if they can name you as an “additional insured” on the barn’s policy and then offer to pay that premium.
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