Policies

Choosing the Right Equine Insurance Coverage

Horse insurance is not a single product. It is a set of coverages that are assembled around a particular horse, a particular property and a particular business, and the right combination for a one-horse owner looks nothing like the right combination for a thirty-stall training barn. The five areas below cover the exposures we see most often across the Western United States, and most of our clients end up carrying two or three of them rather than just one.

If you are not sure where to begin, the useful first question is not “which policy do I need?” but “what would hurt most if it went wrong?” For an owner, that is usually losing the horse or facing a veterinary bill they cannot meet. For a boarding or training business, it is usually a liability claim — an injured client, an injured employee, or a client-owned horse that comes to harm in your care.

Equine Mortality

Equine Mortality insurance is the foundation policy and works much like life insurance for your horse. It protects you financially if your horse dies as a result of natural or accidental causes while in the United States or Canada, and it also responds where an insured animal must be humanely destroyed to relieve incurable and excessive suffering caused by an insured peril, with the company’s agreement.

Insured value starts with the purchase price and may be increased for training and transportation costs, race winnings, show accomplishments and the performance of offspring. Speculative and sentimental value are not insurable. A horse can be insured for mortality from as early as 24 hours old and generally up to 20 years of age, and the policy becomes effective only once the completed application and a veterinary certificate or Statement of Health have been approved by the underwriters. Mortality cover is also the gateway policy — the medical endorsements below can only be added to it.

Major Medical, Surgical and Loss of Use

Major Medical, Surgical and Loss of Use endorsements handle the scenarios where your horse survives but the financial consequences are severe. Major Medical covers medical and surgical procedures including diagnostics, arising from accident, illness, injury or disease, with limits available up to $25,000. Surgical Coverage responds to procedures performed under general anaesthesia and includes up to 50% of non-surgical aftercare, with limits up to $10,000.

Full Loss of Use pays a percentage of the insured value — usually 50% to 70% depending on the carrier — where a horse becomes permanently unable to perform its insured use through accident, illness, injury or disease. Accidental Loss of Use covers the same outcome where it results from visible injury caused by external, accidental and violent means. Loss of Use is not available for every discipline; it is usually eligible for hunter/jumper, dressage and sometimes reining. Medical claims are paid on a reimbursement basis, so you settle with the veterinarian and submit invoices to us.

Farm and Ranch Coverage (Commercial Package)

The Farm and Ranch Commercial Package covers the property itself and the business run from it. Most of the property and liability insurance a professional horseman needs can be brought together on one commercial package policy, usually divided into three sections: property, general liability and vehicles.

The property section can insure permanent structures used in the horse business — stables, sheds, garages, employee dwellings and bullpens — along with the residence, and business personal property such as tack, hay and grain, tractors, implements, irrigation pipe and farm tools. The general liability section protects you for legal liability arising from both personal activities and business operations, including losses away from the premises, with Medical Payments included for anyone injured on your property. Vehicles — pickups, autos, horse trailers and tractor trucks — can be added as a separate section. This policy also closes the single biggest gap in the market: business pursuits are excluded on a Homeowner policy, leaving a family horse business to self-insure a potentially catastrophic liability loss.

Care, Custody & Control

Care, Custody & Control is liability coverage for horses that are in your care but are not yours. It responds where a boarded, trained or transported non-owned horse becomes sick or dies due to your negligence or the negligence of an employee — an exposure that general liability policies typically exclude precisely because the property is in your control.

The objection we hear most often is that all the horses at the barn are insured by their owners. If those horses are not yours, you still need this coverage: an owner’s policy protects the owner’s interest, not your business against a negligence claim. Boarding facilities should generally be looking at Equine Commercial Liability, Care, Custody & Control and possibly an excess liability policy, alongside Workers’ Compensation.

Workers’ Compensation and Employers Liability

Workers’ Compensation and Employers Liability provides benefits to employees who are injured or become ill during the course of, or due to, their employment. In California every employer is required to carry it, and that requirement applies even where you have only one part-time employee. Companies based out of state with employees hired in California must carry California Workers’ Compensation Insurance as well.

Barns are frequently caught out by informal arrangements. A boarder who works off part of their stall rent by cleaning stalls, or a person receiving accommodation in exchange for jobs around the ranch, is receiving remuneration even though no money changes hands — and that value should be declared on your payroll reports. Where there is doubt, the Labor Code assumes a worker is an employee, and the burden of proving independent contractor status falls on the employer.

How to Get Started

Unsure of your insurance needs? That is exactly what our agents are for. Obtaining insurance is time-consuming: researching carriers, comparing what each one will and will not write, and matching the result to your horse or your business takes hours most horse people would rather spend riding. Our agents have been doing that work for over 40 years, and Equine Insurance has been selected by nationwide equestrian organisations, farms, trainers and Olympic team members as their insurance provider.

The quickest way to begin is to complete the relevant questionnaire on our quote page. If you would like to understand the detail first, our frequently asked questions cover values, claims, renewals and eligibility, and forms and links has the applications and veterinary documents you will need.