Why getting insurance for your horse is important

Good afternoon everyone!

This week we continue with answers to some frequently asked questions (FAQ's). Sometimes people ask, why should I even bother to insure my horse? They will be fine, I take good care of them. Well, there are many reasons to consider equine insurance. Here is an article answering the question:

The cost of insurance is minimal when compared to the overall costs of maintaining your horses, paying for colic surgery, or paying a lawsuit.  It'll probably cost more to enter your horse in a show than to insure it.

If you've just purchased a horse, it may be a good idea to carry the optional Major Medical & Surgical in addition to the standard Mortality, just because you don't know what medical problems the horse may have. After a year, you might decide to carry just the standard Mortality.  Note that Medical & Surgical is an optional addition to the mortality - it can't be purchased as a stand alone item.

You should insure your horses to protect you against the possibility of losing them to various causes, which may put you in a financial bind to attempt to cure an illness, or pay for an accident, theft, or death.  Too often, a horse is injured, or colics, therefore requiring expensive surgery which would save its life.  However, due to the unexpected nature and cost, this isn't always possible, and ends with the horse suffering or dying.

The standard Mortality insurance provides some colic surgery coverage.  With mortality insurance, the company will give you money for colic surgery (up to 60% of the value of the animal, with a maximum coverage of $3,000).  Further, if you wish to add the Major Medical & Surgical insurance, additional colic surgery or other surgery coverage is provided, as well as coverage which will pay for nearly any medical problem other than regular checks or maintenance.  The standard Mortality insurance also covers against theft.

Personal horseowners liability insurance is also available. This insurance covers up to five horses, with coverages ranging from $300,000 to $1,000,000 at affordable premiums.  It provides legal defense should you be sued, and/or payments should your horse cause damage or bodily injury.

While many states do have some "limited liability" laws to protect horse owners, in many cases you can be liable for damage done by your horse, even if you're at a boarding stable or at a horse show. Even people who board their horses can be liable for damage a horse does, unless the stable owner can be proved negligent, such as by not fixing a fence or letting a known biter near the public.

Often you'll be asked to sign a waiver at shows or other horse-related events. According to legal experts, the waivers generally hold up in court unless there are extraordinary circumstances, such as a stable putting a novice rider on a known problem horse.

If you're running a boarding business, trail or pony ride business, provide horse training, or operate a riding club, you should insure the business for liability should a horse or rider cause damage to another party.  Note that club insurance provides liability for spectators or others, but doesn't cover the club members, or their horses, as they should each carry their own insurance.   For boarding stables, an individual's home owner's insurance will sometimes cover you, although if you sell or train more than one horse, the home owner's insurance may not apply.  Be sure to check your individual Home Owner policy.

Mortality insurance is sort of a "life insurance" policy on your horse.  It covers death from virtually any accident or sickness, and our policies include humane destruction by a veterinarian.

The bottom line is, how much are you willing to lose, should you have to replace your animal, pay for surgery, or defend yourself in a lawsuit?  Use that as your basis for deciding if you need insurance, and what coverage levels you will require.

Updated List of States

Did you know? Associations Underwriters has been serving horsemen with all of their equine insurance, property insurance and farm liability needs. We Specialize in equine related insurance and provide farm, property & equipment coverage to our clients.  We have been providing coverage to boarding stables, breeding facilities, training stables, lesson stables, horse shows, and clinics for over 50 years, throughout the majority of the United States. Feel free to contact us today about your equine insurance needs at: www.equininsuranceagent.com 

Here is our current list of states that we can provide coverage in:

California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Kansas
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia

Sleep Patterns in Horses: Lack of proper sleep can be detrimental to overall health

Good Morning Bloggers,

Just like us humans horses require certain amounts of sleep and sleep patterns can vary based on each horse. Lack of sleep or a sleep disorder may impact a horse's physical activity, attitude and quality of health and life but when it comes down to it, horses actually require very little sleep compared to us humans. Check out the following article below, shared from Practical Horseman entitled 'Sleep Patterns in Horses.'

Sleep Patterns in Horses

If your horse dozes off between classes at a horse show, does that mean he's exhausted? Probably not. By Elaine Pascoe for Practical Horseman magazine

By Sue McDonnell

Rousting your horse out of his stall at 3:00 AM to braid his mane, put him on the trailer, and haul to a show interrupts his usual sleep pattern. But the interruption is unlikely to affect his performance. If he's used to the show scene, he'll find opportunities to nap here and there during the day. Even if he's on edge all day, in a state of heightened alertness that keeps him awake, he won't lose enough rest to show signs of sleep deprivation. (Horses on 100-mile endurance rides are far less affected by sleep loss than their riders, according to Sarah Ralston, VMD, PhD, of Rutgers University, who's studied these horses-and who's a competitive-trail rider herself. She says they nap at vet checks and get through a twenty-four-hour ride just fine with that.)

Moving to a new barn, variations in turnout and exercise times, and other changes in routine can also disrupt sleep patterns. But horses are remarkably adaptable about sleeping. They can get used to many different situations, even to constant change. Put under lights (to get broodmares cycling or to keep coats short), they soon get used to the long hours of artificial daylight and go back to their usual daily patterns of sleep and rest. Even circus horses, which are moving all the time, don't appear sleep-deprived, says Sue McDonnell. They get to know the daily travel and performance routine, then settle down and rest.

Horses can become sleep-deprived if they're prevented from lying down and so can't achieve deep sleep. But this won't happen in a day, or even several days; it takes weeks, research shows. And most horses find a way to lie down and sleep, even in situations you might think are less than ideal.

Sue McDonnell has observed wild, semi-wild, and domestic horses in all sorts of settings, including open fields, reserves, box stalls, and tie stalls in Eastern Europe (where this type of stabling is common) and on PMU ranches. (As one of five independent veterinary researchers investigating the comfort and welfare of PMU mares, she's analyzed round-the-clock videos of hundreds of horses, quantifying their every move.) "Horses in properly fitted tie stalls can and do sleep lying down with as great a frequency and total duration as box-stalled horses," she notes. In fact, she says, mares at PMU farms, kept in tie stalls for extended periods so their urine can be collected, have standing and lying-down sleep patterns closer to those of wild horses than do horses in other stabling situations. One reason may be that the mares can see each other and thus feel safe.


Horses have simple needs in bedding, too. They appear perfectly happy sleeping on the ground, even hard ground, as long as it's not very wet or covered in deep mud. Stabled horses don't sleep better for having deep bedding, the round-the-clock observations of Sue McDonnell and other equine behavioral researchers show.

Where bedding and stall flooring can become an issue is in the case of a horse who's older or who has a disability that makes getting up and down difficult. If the surface is at all slippery, this horse may be unwilling to lie down, fearing he won't be able to get up quickly. An older horse may resist lying down to the point that he becomes sleep-deprived. He may sleep better outside, where the ground provides more solid footing, than in a deep-bedded stall.

The bottom line, Sue McDonnell says, is to understand and think of your horse's sleep needs in his terms, not human terms. PH

Sue McDonnell, PhD, is the founding head of the Equine Behavior Lab at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. For the past twenty years, she has studied horses and their wild relatives-including zebras, Przewalski's horses, and donkeys--in settings all over the world. Her research has been published in the American Journal of Veterinary Research and other journals.

Where they can, Dr. McDonnell and her fellow researchers at the Equine Behavior Lab videotape their subjects for 24-hour periods. Then they analyze the tapes and quantify each behavior-eating, drinking, sleeping, and so on. Where videos aren't possible, the researchers observe the animals in shifts over 24 hours.

The lab maintains a herd of up to sixty semi-feral ponies at Penn's New Bolton Center large-animal facility in Kennett Square, Pa. Having this group of ponies available has allowed the researchers to track the same animals, as individuals and as a herd, over a period of years.

This article first appeared in the September 2000 issue of Practical Horseman magazine.

Transitioning your horse to spring pasture

Good Morning bloggers!

We all know that horses are animals and can have accidents at any time resulting in claims. However, it's important that owners do everything they can to avoid issues and keep their horses in top health. Every year as the spring grass comes in, it's important to watch your horses and follow some simple steps to avoid founder and other issues that can be caused. Today we are sharing with you an article from the University of Minnesota Extension program on how to transition your horses to spring pastures.  Take a look and see if you already knew about this process and how to keep your horse healthy!

Transitioning horses to spring pasture

By: Krishona Martinson, PhD, University of Minnesota

Spring grazing should be introduced slowly and delayed until grasses reach 6 to 8” in height to optimize both the health of the horse and pasture.
It is tempting to turn horses out into spring pastures at the first sight of green grass, especially after a long winter. However, spring grazing should be introduced slowly and delayed until grasses reach 6 to 8” in height to optimize both the health of the horse and pasture.

When horse pastures reach 6 to 8”, begin grazing for 15 minutes, increasing the grazing time each day by 15 minutes until 4 to 5 hours of consecutive grazing is reached. After that, unrestricted or continuous grazing can resume.

It is also recommended to feed horses their normal hay diet before turning them out to pasture during the first several grazing events of the year (along with the time restrictions). This strategy should help avoid rapid intake of pasture grasses.

Why is this recommendation so important?

Even though hay and pasture are both forms of forages, there are significant differences. Dried hay is approximately 15% moisture compared to fresh pasture that is 85% moisture. The horse is a hind-gut, fermenting herbivore that relies extensively on the microbes present in its gastrointestinal tract to be able to process forages. The microbes are a mix of different organisms that work together to the benefit of the horse. If the feedstuffs the microbes are utilizing change suddenly, there may be too little time for the microbial populations to adjust to the change. Instead, large numbers of them die, while others flourish, setting up a situation where toxins may be absorbed by the horse, resulting in digestive dysfunction and possibly colic. A gradual change from one feedstuff to another provides enough time for the microbial populations to adjust.

Manage pastures to reduce the chance of laminitis

Laminitis is a painful, disabling, common, and costly disease of the horse and pony that has many causes. Annual incidence of laminitis in the U.S. is reported to be 2%, but this rises to about 5% in the spring and summer. Nearly half of all reported cases of laminitis in the U.S. occur in animals at pasture. During photosynthesis, green plants produce simple sugars. When sugars are produced in excess of the energy requirement of the plant for growth and development, they are converted into storage, or "reserve" carbohydrates. Storage of carbohydrates is commonly seen during the rapid growth of spring. The vegetative tissues of cool season pasture grasses (i.e. timothy, orchardgrass, bromegrass) accumulate fructan as a component of their reserve carbohydrate, which is stored in the stem until required by the plant as an energy source. The sum of the simple sugars, fructan, and starch comprises the nonstructural carbohydrate (NSC) fraction of the plant. There is some evidence of association, and even stronger evidence of causation between laminitis and rapid intake (and total intake) of NSC. Furthermore, administering high concentrations of fructan to horses has resulted in laminitis.

Why is so much emphasis placed on fructan and spring grazing? Seasonal variations in pasture carbohydrates are well documented. In European studies, concentrations of fructan concentrations were highest in the spring, lowest in summer, and intermediate in the fall. Because horses are selective grazers, and are known to find feedstuffs with elevated sugar content highly palatable, avoiding or restricting grazing in the early spring can reduce the chance of rapid NSC intake and laminitis. Seek veterinarian approval before grazing horses susceptible to (or with previous episodes of) laminitis as some horses cannot tolerate any grazing.

Pasture health

Pasture grasses need sufficient growth before grazing is allowed. Photosynthesis (the process of converting solar energy to chemical energy) occurs mainly within the leaves of plants. If the leaves are grazed too early (prior to 6” tall) or too often, plants can lose vigor, competitiveness, and root structure due to the lack of photosynthetic ability. This will lead to eventual die back and overgrazed areas being replaced by undesirable plant species or weeds.

Grazing should cease when forages have been grazed down to 3 to 4 inches. At this time, move horses to another paddock or a dry lot. Grazing can resume when grasses regrow to 6 to 8”. On average, 2 to 3 acres of well-managed pasture can provide the forage needs for one horse from spring to fall.

Conclusions

It is critical to slowly introduce horses to spring pastures. When horse pastures reach 6 to 8”, begin grazing for 15 minutes, increasing the grazing time by 15 minutes each day until 4 to 5 hours of consecutive grazing is reached. Following this recommendation will help ensure both horse and pasture health.


To view the original article, click here.

FAQ's: Part Three (test your own knowledge!)

This week we finish our FAQ series with two of our most asked questions. Remember, if you are looking for equine insurance, or have questions on your own policy, please feel free to contact us at: www.equineinsuranceagent.com

What determines "Loss of Use"?
Loss of use coverage if requested would cover in the event that the horse becomes permanently unable to perform and no likelihood of recovery.   

What question do you get most often when someone wants to get their horse insured? 
How much does it cost? 
That depends on what coverage options are requested and the current market value of the horse which is based on purchase price and or show or breeding record. Also, is there a deductible? Yes, For the Major Medical there is a $500.00 deductible per incident. 

FAQ's: Part Two

Good Morning!

This week we want to continue our basic FAQ series to help better inform our customers! Take a look at the information below and let us know if you have any other questions. 

If you're leasing a horse, who pays for the insurance?

Usually the person  that owns the horse, but it really depends on the contract between parties.

What is the basic process of filing a claim?

The insurance company has a 24-hour claims service phone number to report any claim or potential claim.

Remember, if you have more specific questions for us regarding your individual coverage please feel free to contact us and reach out at: www.equineinsuranceagent.com 

FAQ's: Part One

Good Morning!

Remember last week us mentioning that we were going to start a FAQ series here? Well, today we will do our first two questions!

Question 1. How old is too old for my horse to be insured? 
   We insure through age 20 maximum.

Question 2.    What is the difference between major medical and mortality insurance? 
Major medical coverage will pay for medical care if the horse becomes sick or injured. Mortality insurance covers you if your horse passes away. You will get their value reimbursed. 

Remember, if you have more specific questions for us regarding your individual coverage please feel free to contact us and reach out at: www.equineinsuranceagent.com