Birthday Party Pony Rides

I am a teenager with a very good old pony (28 or 29) that has experiance with doing birthday parties. I was wondering what kind of safety stuff or insurance I will need as a minor to get paid for doing pony rides at birthday parties

I spoke with an insurance agency about this the other day. I'm going to start doing Pony Parties and those old time Picture Pony pics once I get the right pony. They said it's about $100 a month. It's for $500,000 liability insurance.

$500k doesn't really sound like enough to cover the potential loss in a situation like this. Just a thought.

That is what is required for all equine businesses by law. AND that it requires that all riders wear a helmet and sign a form. Even though the agent said in the end the form is worthless.

What I'm saying is, if I was going to put myself in this position (IE. Run a pony ride gig), I'd make sure I was insured for at least up to $2 million. I am saying $500k is not enough in my opinion.

I understand that. I'm not sure if you can request more. I just know that is how much you have to have in Ohio.

I'd be asking!

You know what they say right, prepare for the worst, hope for the best?

Not to get morbid (but I'm going to anyways), say Joe Schmoe brings little Gigi for a pony ride. Something spooks poor pony, and Gigi lands on her neck perhaps permanently injuring her spinal cord. I'm pretty sure Mr. Schmoe could sue for damages in which that $500k liability you're insured for just touches the surface of what that kid will need to recover.

Check out the following figures - and these are old, from 2002:

What Do Spinal Cord Injuries Really Cost?

• Length of initial hospitalization following personal injury in acute care units: 15 days
• Average stay in rehabilitation unit: 44 days
• Initial hospitalization costs following injury: $140,000
• Average first year expenses for a SCI injury (all groups): $198,000
• First year expenses for paraplegics: $152,000
• First year expenses for quadriplegics: $417,000
• Average lifetime costs for paraplegics, age of injury 25: $428,000
• Average lifetime costs for quadriplegics, age of injury 25: $1.35 million
• Percentage of SCI individuals unemployed eight years after injury 63%. (Note: unemployment rate when this article was written was 4.7%)

Source: The University of Alabama National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center - March 2002

Jumper, as a minor you cannot legally enter into any contractual agreements with adults or insurance companies, so a parent or adult legal guardian would have to take on that task.

That was the other thing I was thinking about. Which means if anything happened, its the parents who are liable. Is that right?

Yes ma'am, the parent/legal guardian would be the ones liable, since you can't sue children.

Which means they could lose everything they own if someone got badly hurt.

I don't see anyone's parents willing to run that risk, so I'd say the OP has little to no chance to have this come to fruition.

I admire her willingness to work and make money, but it's not going to happen with this idea.