Homeowners Insurance vs Owning horses

[Candice]

As most everyone know, State Farm is pulling out of Florida (no more homeowners Ins.). Well, I"ve been with State Farm since the 80's. Knowing that we need to find a new Homeowners Insurance Company, my husband went down and talked to one of our local agents with another company that we have our business, equipment, vehicles and horses insured through.

They refused our home because we have the horses and they are too much of a liability. I about fell over when he told me this. Anyone run into this?? I live in a rural community and everyone of my neighbors has some form of livestock. One of the agents in this office owns horses. The best she could offer was to check with our local farm bureau. What a crock!! This makes ZERO sense to me. We're still shopping around and will check with the farm bureau. I was just wondering if anyone else has run into anything like this and what you ended up doing.

 

[Al B]

Ran into that 10 years ago when State Farm dropped us because we had horses. Two that should do it; Farm Bureau (don't recommend) and Germania (don't know about them). We went with Nationwide.

 

[whimsical]

I was gonna recomment Farm Bureau.

We have had them for many years. And have been cheaper than most companies.

When we first came to Texas most of the big companies wouldn't write any new policies due to the mold lawsuits.

And Farm Bureau was one of the only ones that would.

My parents even used them for many years and they have never had livestock.

 

[ontherisefarm]

When our insurance company left the state of Ohio, we were told by our broker we had to get farm insurance to cover liability. It is more expensive than normal insurance but it covers our barns, our tractor, plus our home. No other company would take us on because of the horses.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I suppose I am naive--what does owning a horse or other livestock have to do with homeowner's insurance? Do people make claims against their homeowner's insurance for things happening to their horses? Their horses hurting someone? I thought separate/extra coverage was required for things like that, such as with a swimming pool.

Does it only concern clients whose horses are a business?

Just talked to our State Farm agent. He told me Texas and Florida are seperate entities within State Farm. Policies there are not the same as for other states. He told me not to worry about my horses.

 

[Minimor]

Marsha--generally the homeowners insurance includes liability insurance, and yes, if your horse got out and did damage to a neighbor's property or person that neighbor could make a claim against your homeowners liability insurance. The horses would be insured separately--whether as an extra rider on the homeowners insurance or under a separate policy/with a different company, but that would be insurance on the horse itself, if it were to get killed by a bear or stray dogs or whatever...liability insurance would be under the homeowner policy, and that is why some companies refuse to insure horse owners.

 

[Annabellarose]

Marsha,

In a nutshell, it's for things like your horse gets loose and subsequently gets hit by a car or bites a child trying to feed it through the fence without your permission when you're not looking or a visitor gets bitten or stepped on or kicked and injured and needs medical treatment, etc.

 

[Candice]

The problem isn't with State Farm. They are insuring us now, but they are pulling out of Fl (for homeowners coverage only). Our barns are covered under this policy as seperate structures. Its just kind of strange to me. I never expected this. Nothing is easy any more.

 

[wildoak]

We ran into this when we moved several years ago. We had horses for 20 years at the other place, no problems, but for some reason I don't remember, we had to change companies and ended up with Farm Bureau as they were the only ones who would write it with all these horses. And even at that, we had to fill out pages of information about whether we had concession stands on the property, if we held rodeos, competitions, had people in the barn regularly, etc etc. Pretty much had to tell them we were hermits who never had visitors or let anyone set foot on the property with all of the dangerous horses. I don't know how they suppose we actually sell horses LOL. It was a frustrating experience, and they were deaf to the fact that these are miniature horses.

Jan

 

[whimsical]

That is so weird. We never had to fill out a questionaire about what we do with the horses.

We just told them we had them. We did at one point look at price shopping and ended up our pool was a bigger problem than the horses. No one around here wanted to write a policy with a pool on the property. Even though we had the required fencing.

I guess each office is different.

Edited: Oh and they had reservations about us having a dog. Even though she is the type to roll over for a belly rub instead of growling. And she isn't a "dangerous breed". Small mixed terrier breed.

 

[Suzie]

We have State Farm and no problems with horses. But we live in NC. NC is one of 4 remaining states with a type of "shared liability" in effect. The example we got was this:

A woman crosses the road to get her mail. A drunk comes down the road and hits her. She bears part of the responsibility because she crossed the road. So she might collect money, may not get any or she might win and the jury can recommend no payment be made to her.

I know, it makes no sense but we went though 3 years of suing to get my son's eye fixed when he got hurt at a birthday party at his best friend's home. They had Farm Bureau (horrible people to work with here!!!). We had to sue and our lawyer took 1/3 of the settlement to get the medical bills covered. A NIGHTMARE. But we certainly learned about how the law works in different states. We were told if our son had been in S.C., we would have had the money in no time....

We have never had anyone file against us for animals and we have had a farm and State Farm Ins for 30+ years. We have the disclaimer signs on every corner of our barns, etc.

 

[Karen S]

I’m a license insurance agent for the State of Texas and have been since 1984. Every insurance company that writes insurance in a state has to submit their underwriting guidelines with their respective insurance board. What they will or will not insure. With all of the hurricanes, tornados, hail storms that keep getting more frequent year after year, there are a lot of insurance companies pulling out of states.

Horses, just like swimming pools and trampolines are “attractive nuisance and yes are a liability issue. Same if an agent ask you what type of dog you have. Companies won’t insure someone who has what they term as vicious dogs, i.e., Chows, Dobie’s, pit bulls, and shepherds. Dog bites are the number 1 cause of liability claims.

If you would go to your states, State Board of Insurance website, it will list all of the companies that do business in your state. When you look at these companies it will give you the ratings for these companies, A, B, C etc and what type of insurance they sell. Here in Texas, some of the main companies that carry farm/ranch insurance are Germania and Texas Farm Bureau. There are several smaller companies that do and rates vary from company to company and state to state.

If you haven’t had a policy review in a while, I urge you to call your insurance agent and set up an appointment to meet with them. This is something that will need at least an hour of your and their time in order to go through what you have and what is and isn’t covered. Don’t assume anything!

If you don’t understand what you are buying, ASK your insurance agent to explain to you in layman terms what you are buying. I would rather spend an extra minute with you being sure you understand than you walking out of my office still scratching your head. Speak up we don’t mind answering questions.

Karen

 

[Cathy_H]

We are with USAA ( for military soldiers & their families ) for like 30 + years now. We have to pay extra because we are a farm and we are limited in the number we can have plus we have an umbrella policy (horse shows - haulling etc)........ They've told us that when we sell this property & build new that they will no longer insure us as they are not writing new policies for farms. I hope they change their mind by then for we have everything with them from life insurance to IRA's to vehicle insurance.

 

[Candice]

Karen, Thankyou for the State board of Insurance website info. I will look into that. Interesting that so many people have run into this.

 

[sedeh]

I had been with Allstate for years and had a farm policy...then a few years ago they said they weren't going to continue that policy and no longer would cover the horses etc. I had to shop around and ended up with Countrywide. So far, so good! But they also wanted to know what types and how many dogs I had.

 

[Charlotte]

We have the disclaimer signs on every corner of our barns, etc.

Suzie, have you heard of the results of any cases where a person was injured but the 'horse property' had the disclaimer signs posted?

We have them posted also...on our entry gate to the horse area and in the barn. Big signs. I'm just wondering how the law looks at them. I guess each state would be different, but the results in one state might be similar to others.

Charlotte

 

[Karen S]

Hi Charlotte,

Yes, disclaimer signs are good. As you are notifing people. If an accident happens and the adjuster comes out that is usually one of the first questions they ask. I encourage all of my clients that have swimming pools to put them up as they are not responsible for accidents. Any one can still be sued no matter what precautions you take. Most of the time it's left up to us to "Prove" our innocense.

Karen

 

[Songcatcher]

When we started with the horses I asked my agent (Shelter) what I needed. He added a rider onto my home owners policy that cost $31.oo.

 

[Littleum]

We are with USAA ( for military soldiers & their families ) for like 30 + years now. We have to pay extra because we are a farm and we are limited in the number we can have plus we have an umbrella policy (horse shows - haulling etc)........ They've told us that when we sell this property & build new that they will no longer insure us as they are not writing new policies for farms. I hope they change their mind by then for we have everything with them from life insurance to IRA's to vehicle insurance.

Really. USAA won't cover farms anymore? Wonder if that applies to TX too. We have USAA as well and figured I'd never need to worry about not being able to get coverage. I'd really rather not have to go outside USAA for coverage!

What the heck are people supposed to do when all the insurance companies pull out of everything?

 

[Karen S]

HI Littleum,

That's where our states have insurance pools. Texas has one call the Texas Fair Plan. It's for homeowner's who cannot get coverage through the standard route, have been turned down by at least 2 different companie. They can then apply...but again....it's limited coverage.

Karen