Owning a Horse Trailer can suddenly propel you to being one of the most popular people at your yard and in the same stroke can cause you a series of dilemmas on how to say no when someone asks to borrow your prized possession.

So, if someone asks to borrow your horse trailer, aside from any personal feelings you may have about the person or aside from any issues of trust with regard to them looking after it, you may ask what the legal situation is.

Although I had a fair idea myself on what the risks are I contacted a number of companies who provide horse trailer insurance and ran it by them.

The insurers fell into two camps, those who won’t cover you at all under these circumstances and those who would cover part of the risks involved dependent upon the individual circumstances at the time and the level of cover provided by your policy.

Insurance companies refer to circumstances as risks and the main risks in loaning your trailer to a third party are as follows:

None of the insurers would cover you if you were to accept any form of payment or reward from the person you loaned your trailer to, whether this is for a few hours or a day.  This is very much classed as “Hire & Reward” for which you need commercial policy cover. Whether you are an individual attempting to make a few pounds by loaning out your trailer or a large commercial company undertaking this practice you need a proper policy that would cover risks for “hire & reward”. Typically this type of policy will also incorporate public liability cover and product liability cover. If you don’t have this cover then be prepared to lose your house or anything else you own if you are sued by another insurance company.

The circumstance which we can all relate to is if a friend asks to “borrow” your trailer for the day to go to a show then one of the following happens:

a) Your trailer is stolen from them at the show or at their yard – under these circumstances some insurers would pay out providing the person borrowing it had used the approved security devices stipulated in your policy, but the majority would not pay out citing that your policy would become void as soon as you loaned your trailer to someone else thus breaching the terms of your policy.

b) Your trailer was damaged by the person borrowing it and they could not afford to pay you for the damage – Most insurers again advised that they would not pay out under these circumstances and only one said they would pay out but it would be for “accidental damage” only. So if another vehicle or horse damaged it whilst in your friend’s control and your friend could not get recompense themselves from that third party then you would be left with a damaged trailer.

c) The person borrowing your trailer alleged that as a result of using your trailer their horse or indeed they had suffered an injury whilst in it and they tried to take legal action against you, would the insurers of your trailer assist you in defending any such claim? – There was a unanimous no from all the insurers to this question. You would then be defending any such case funded from your own pocket which if it were a personal injury claim could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The other factor you have to take into account even with the more favourable insurers’ responses is that they all will have a reasonable care clause in their policy, which means that if the person borrowing it was deemed to have been reckless under any circumstances which led to a claim then the insurers again could, and probably would, refuse to pay out.

In my opinion insurers of horse trailers are providing a fairly good level of cover for a reasonable price these days given the litigious society we all live in but never take anything thing for granted. Always read the policy documents sent to you and make sure you understand exactly what you are covered for and under what circumstances.

I would advise the owner of any horse trailer to contact their insurers and obtain a written response to what their individual stance or policy terms are before lending your trailer out to a friend. This certainly is a case of being safe rather than sorry, broke and minus a friend!

This article was written by Mark Unsworth a director at Horse Trailer Parts Direct