What Does Your Commercial Equine Insurance Give You?

The Basic Insurance Types

Commercial General Liability Insurance
What it does: Protects a named insured in the event the entity is sued for bodily injury and/or property damage.

How it is sold: In per occurrence limits, typically $500,000 or $1 million per occurrence. Policies are written to cover declared business operations within a specific policy territory.

“A professional horseman – trainer, breeder, riding instructor – should never operate without commercial general liability insurance,” DeTurk said.

One of the most important benefits of this kind of policy is payment of defense costs. “If you’re sued alleging you caused someone’s accident,” DeTurk explained, “doing the investigation and defending the case is a key part of your insurance protection.

“All good general liability policies pay defense outside the limit,” she added. “If you have a $500,000 limit, and it costs us $200,000 to investigate and defend you, you still have $500,000 to pay any judgment that might be rendered against you.”

One of the biggest mistakes horsemen make with a general liability policy is failing to adequately declare in the application the specific actions they perform in conducting their businesses.

“For example,” DeTurk explained, “a general liability policy typically covers the named insured anywhere in the United States or Canada, as long as they are operating as declared in the application.

“Say you have a horseman who trains horses and clearly identifies that he travels with boarded horses to horse shows and trains at those horse shows. “If, all of a sudden, he also decides to take one of his horses to a mall to give pony rides, the insurance company can deny coverage for any claim arising from the pony rides. Why? Because that activity was not declared in the application. “It has nothing to do with whether he’s home or away. It has to do with him doing operations that were not declared.”

Similarly, if a trainer decides to give lessons at a clinic in Germany and has not stated in the application that he or she gives lessons internationally, again the company can deny coverage because the lessons are outside the policy territory.

It’s just a matter of knowing the stated terms of your policy and making sure it covers exactly what you need.

FYI: In DeTurk’s opinion, the biggest mistake horse businesses make in purchasing commercial equine insurance is not shopping around.