2019 Membership Fee Increases

Dear Members,

Equestrian Australia (EA) finalised the 2018/19 EA Insurance program details with their broker, Gow Gates, in mid-July. They have advised all state branches that there has been a significant increase in the cost of insurance worldwide in recent years. The total EA program cost has increased from $1.1 million to $1.7 million.

Together with Gow Gates, EA looked at many alternatives in trying to reduce the cost of the program. One of these was the benefits across the entire program - Club, Coach and Member - and it was decided that these would not be reduced and we would retain the same level of benefits for this policy year. The manner in how the program is insured has been changed and we are hopeful that this will result in costs stabilising.

The reasons the program cost has increased are driven by three main factors:

• the cost of the inquests into the recent tragedies in Eventing
• a high level of Coaching claims and
• a large number of Personal Accident claims.

This has resulted in the cost to the insurers being substantially greater than the premiums over the past 5 years.

Unfortunately, all equestrian activities are regarded as high-risk. Both EA and EWA have a high level of risk management through our policies and rules and continually review these to ensure the sport is as safe as possible for all our participants and therefore reduce the risk of harm and consequential insurance claims.

EWA acknowledges that the costs of owning a horse is constantly increasing and we will continue to ensure that all possible avenues are investigated in keeping membership cost increases to a minimum, however, there will be an increase of membership fees in 2019 to cover the increased insurance costs.