Grooms' Personal accident Insurance 

Within five working days from submitting your BGA Membership including KBIS BGA Personal Accident insurance (ie.Bronze/Silver/Platinum), you will receive an email from KBIS to confirm your policy is live. Please look out for it and contact us if you do not receive it. If you have answered yes to any of the medical questions on the application form, KBIS will send you a medical questionnaire. You will not be put on cover until this has been returned and it has been sent to the underwriters, so please look out for this email. 

The KBIS BGA Personal Accident policy will cover you for all activities as a groom including riding whilst at work and travelling horses both in the UK and abroad.

It does not cover you for liability. It is an occupational policy, which will cover you for an accident which happens in the workplace,

There are limitations to the policy, for example it does not cover you if you are riding in a race and further information about what the policy does and doesn’t cover can be found here  - it is important to read the Terms and Conditions thoroughly.

You may have also added own-horse cover which means it covers you when you are with horses outside of work. It does not cover any other recreational time or activity.

Yes, the policy is designed to cover all working grooms, including freelance grooms.

As a freelance groom you may want to consider the importance of Temporary Total Disablement (TTD) cover. TTD pays out a weekly benefit, up to the sum insured or 65% of the insured person’s gross weekly wage, whichever is less, should an injury leave you temporarily unable to carry out your normal occupation/business.

Particularly important when self employed as you will have no entitlement to statutory sick pay (SSP).

TTD cover is available under both the Silver and Platinum Memberships. 

Yes the personal accident policy will cover you when you are teaching. However you must also be a groom in the line of your work.

The policy is designed for grooms and not for those that only teach for a living.

Yes, the policy provides cover for students whilst they are participating in a college sponsored work placement.

If you are not being paid for the work you carry out and do not receive any other work related pay you should read our guidance on Temporary Total disablement carefully as you may not be able to claim for this benefit.

You need to discover what 'insurance' you actually have. It is very rare for an equestrian employer to have personal accident insurance for their staff. 

Ultimately the decision rest with you if you opt for BGA membership with personal accident insurance. 

Your employer must have Employers Liability cover (unless you work freelance), this will cover you if you are injured but only if the injury occurred because of your employer’s negligence

The minimum age for an insured person is 16 years of age and the maximum age is 75 years of age. Temporary Total Disablement benefits are only available for those 16 years and over, in gainful employment. 

If a member is under 18 years of age and taking out a Direct Debit, it must be paid for by an adult i.e. parent, guardian, employer, with the member as the insured person.

If you already have a Personal Accident policy in place with another provider then you should declare this to KBIS, who will then be able to advise whether it will affect the cover you can take out through your BGA membership.

Will I still be insured? 

This will be dependent upon a number of factors, such as the type of injury/illness, how long ago it occurred, if the injury/illness is still affecting you and whether you are receiving any ongoing treatment. 

In order to determine whether any terms will be imposed on your policy you will be required to submit further information about the injury/illness to KBIS underwriters for them to review.

If terms are applied to the policy that are unsatisfactory, then you will be able to cancel your policy, without charge, from inception within 14 days of the advice being given, i.e. notification as to any limitations to your policy due to a pre-existing injury/illness.

Your insurance cover will start as soon as you have completed the membership sign up and paid for your membership and insurance.

You will be have to complete a short proposal form when you join and unless you have a previous injury or illness, for which KBIS require further information, you will not need to do anything further.

If KBIS do require any further information then they will contact you directly. If you have answered yes to any of the medical questions, KBIS will send you a questionnaire and you will not be put on cover until they ahve received this and it has been sent to the underwriters.

The monthly instalments are collected on the BGA/KBIS behalf by a company called Premium Credit. Premium Credit apply an 8% charge to the premium to cover the costs of the agreement, this works out as an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of 18.5% (for comparison). 

You will also need to complete Premium Credit’s ‘credit agreement’ which will be sent to you by email after you have completed the sign up process.

The credit agreement can be signed electronically through Premium Credit’s online portal www.mypremiumcredit.com

Please note; if you do not complete the credit agreement within 21 days of the start of your membership you will be charged £10 by Premium Credit.

Should you default on a monthly payment then Premium Credit automatically apply a £20 default charge.

No, the membership only includes personal accident insurance.

Not all grooms require Public Liability insurance as many will fall under their employers’ combined liability policies. 

As a BGA member you get access to the BGA Freelance Groom Liability Insurance. This is a bespoke policy for freelance grooms - discover more

The personal accident policy only covers you while you are at work and not at other times. This limitation is implemented to keep the cost of insurance low. 

When completing your membership application form there is the opportunity to upgrade the policy cover to include accidents which occur while you are riding and handling your own horse(s). This will result in a small additional cost. This is then known as a 'plus' policy.

Once the additional cover is in place you have insurance for riding for personal use regardless who the horse belongs to, i.e. if you were riding out with a friend on one of their ponies just for fun.

The insurance extension includes Bodily Injury sustained whilst riding and/or handling horses in connection with personal recreational use, including competition. *Subject otherwise to the conditions and exclusions of the policy.

A volunteer or work experience person could take out the PA cover, however the Temporary Total Disablement cover wouldn’t apply to them as it is worked out on loss of earnings. The Permanent Disablement and injury benefits (e.g. loss of limb, loss of eye etc) would still apply. Please see our Bronze membership option. .

The BGA Membership Personal Accident Insurances (Bronze, Silver and Platinum) and the Freelance Groom Liability Insurance all cover for carriage driving both at home and when working as a groom or a backstepper in competitions.

Yes the policy provides you with world-wide cover 24/7 as long as you are a domicile of the UK (excluding the Channel Islands).

However, the policy does not include cover for repatriation (getting you home after an injury) or medical expenses.

Purchase BGA Travel Insurance if you are working abroad, even it it is for a few days.

You should contact KBIS as soon as possible to advise them of the incident, the BGA can not fulfill your claim. 

You can do this by phone on 01635 247474 (option 4) or email ask@kbis.co.uk.

KBIS will then send you a claim form and tell you what you will need to do next, including any further documentation that you may have to submit for your claim.

Your insurance policy can be cancelled, provided you haven’t made a claim. If you paid by Credit/Debit card you will receive a pro-rata return of premium. You MUST inform the BGA before cancelling any direct debit, otherwise you may incur a fine and it can affect your credit rating.

If you pay by direct debit your payments will be cancelled however the cancellation date of your insurance may pre-date the date you instruct KBIS to cancel your policy due to the membership fee being payable in full.

Don’t worry, KBIS will run through this with you, if you choose to cancel.