Protect Your Horses With Equestrian Insurance

Whether you have a personal horse, run a commercial operation or manage a riding club, your horses are a source of pride and pleasure, as well as significant investment. They require special buildings and equipment and are subject to unique liabilities that should be addressed with an equestrian insurance solution.

Tailored packages provide property coverage for barns, tack, farm personal property, machinery and hay along with liability coverages specific to boarding, breeding, training, sales, clinics and shows. The packages can be tailored to the operation’s needs such as the amount of activity, number of horses and income produced by the business. Liability coverage can include coverage for bodily injury and property damage that occurs as a result of the insured’s activities or negligence if operating a boarding, breeding or training facility.

Mortality insurance reimburses the insured for the death or theft of a horse in the policy period. It can also cover the cost of veterinary care for the horse up to a specified value in the event that a horse is suffering from a covered illness or accident. In order to establish a reasonable value for the horse, a veterinary exam is typically required. For high valued horses, additional substantiation of value may be provided through competition records, breeding records or an opinion from a professional equine specialist.

The significant time and money that go into the care of a horse make it important to protect those assets with an all risk mortality and loss of use policy. These policies usually do not require a veterinary exam in the case of an accident or illness. The amount of the premium for this type of coverage depends on the value of the horse and its level of participation in equestrian activities.

Many states have statutes that eliminate certain liability exposures that are perceived as “inherent” in the equine industry. However, no statutes can eliminate all potential horse-related liabilities. For this reason, an equine personal liability policy is recommended for all horse owners. These policies are available through most companies that write personal lines of insurance and can be added to a homeowners’ or auto policy.

Many equine businesses breed, board or train other people’s horses. These operations have unique liability exposures that cannot be adequately addressed by a general commercial or commercial general liability policy. This is because most standard commercial liability policies contain a care, custody or control exclusion that excludes coverage for damage to non-owned property that a business has in its possession. To address these exposures, a separate equine commercial general liability policy can be written. This type of policy can be designed to include all risk mortality and/or medical/surgical coverage. It can also be written with a separate veterinary expense limitation for colic and surgical treatment only. This helps to avoid the possibility of an uncovered claim for large veterinary bills. A specialized veterinary examination is generally required. This is often not as extensive as a full diagnostic exam and will only include basic blood work, x-rays and ultrasound.