Harrogate-based insurer increases cover limits for horses and cover for point to point and other racing

Horse insurance

Rural Insurance, the specialist agricultural insurer based in Harrogate, has extended its presence in the UK equine market with the launch of a significantly broader range of covers.

Rural managing director Simon Stevens said: “We have increased the maximum sum insured per horse from £15K to £100K, and have additional cover for ‘class 3’ use, which includes point to point racing, advanced eventing, hunter chasing, trotting and pacing races and arab racing. We are also adding horse trailers and horse-drawn vehicles to our product range.” 

He continued: “Our decision to extend our presence comes as a result of demand from our brokers, and it takes Rural into a whole new area of the market.”

“Having spotted the opportunity to expand our presence in the equine market we recruited additional equine underwriting resource at the end of 2011 to develop a new underwriting strategy and policy wording. The culmination of this work is the launch of our new product at the beginning of July, and we are looking forward to capitalising on our great performance from the equine book.”

Mr Stevens said the extension of equine comes against a backdrop of significant growth for Rural, which is aiming to cement its position as a top three player in the UK agricultural insurance market during the next 18 months.

He said: “The UK agriculture insurance market is going through a lot of change, and our brokers are highly receptive to agile specialists like Rural that have a strong service focus and the ability to introduce new products, such as equine, rapidly.”