Third Party Liability Insurance
All ROA members receive automatic liability insurance cover against potential damages if their horse causes injury to a third party or their property.
Following an agreement reached between the ROA, the renowned Newmarket-based insurance broker, Lycetts and the insurance company QBE Insurance (Europe) Ltd, there will be no additional charge made to members for this important benefit beyond the cost of an annual membership to the ROA. This is because it is an all-inclusive scheme. Without this, the premium for obtaining public liability insurance on an individual basis would be higher than the cost of an annual ROA membership.
Owners are vulnerable to claims under the Animals Act
The now notorious case of Mirvahedy-v-Henley has shown that owners are much more vulnerable to claims under the Animals’ Act for damage or injury caused by their horses than was previously thought. The tragic accident of Chris Kinane has quite rightly left many owners concerned about the risk of a claim – and potentially a multi million pound claim – being brought against them by a third party for which they have no insurance protection or inadequate protection.
The indemnity for this scheme is up to a maximum of £10 million per individual claim. It applies to racehorses that are in full training, horses being prepared to go into training and horses which are out of training on a temporary basis.
Although there is a requirement for trainers to have public liability insurance, there is no mandatory requirement for that cover to extend to owners.
Cover when your horse is away from the training yard
Owners may also be exposed to a claim when their horse is resting away from the training yard or is being kept at home. Under these circumstances, our new insurance scheme would provide you with the comfort of knowing you are covered.
However, despite this, if you currently have any other more specific insurance for third party liability relating to your horse or horses than this blanket cover, we would recommend it remains in force.
As with all such schemes, it is important for you to have access to all the details. We are therefore enclosing within this pack a summary document, together with questions and answers that should cover most of members’ queries.
We obviously hope you will never have any need for this insurance, but you can draw some comfort from the fact that it is there if required.
Yours sincerely
Michael Harris
Chief Executive
Lycetts website - www.lycetts.co.uk