Farm Insurance Essentials

Porbeagle

Just trying to organise insurance for the brother's farm there.
FBD's quote has gone up, so trying to get some value for money and also see what really needs to be insured, e.g. cow cubicle house is insured for fire, lighting, explosion & aircraft, but the only flammable material in there is the timber rafters for screwing in the cladding. I'm not so sure how much damage lighting would cause to sheds, or would the arc just flow directly down through the girders into the ground. In essence, do people insure their farm buildings against lightning, or is it a calculated risk, considering low probabilities of lighting strike. Have never heard of farm building damaged due to lighting strike in the locality in my lifetime.
Also regarding animals, do people insure them against lighting and electrocution? The animals are normally housed outside, and only risk I see of electrocution is when the cows are being milked in the parlour, but if the wiring is correct first day and maintained properly, then I would think that this would not happen.
Essential one I would have would be Public Liability (no employees on the farm) but do people insure much above that?
Thanks

ravima

you should have Employers Liability as well as Public Liability. You may have someone helping you to do a job who is hurt and if court deemed them to be an employee and you did not have Employer Liability cover, you are in trouble.

Cattle can be electrocuted outside as well. Lost a lovely bull some years ago, when ring got tangled in electric fence. Poor divil had a terrible death. cattle can also get hit by lightening outside.

remember at the end of the day, you get what you pay for. If you think that you don't need the cover, then don't take it out.................but don't go crying to insurance company if something goes wrong and you don't have the cover.

whelan1

look go to fbd , their quote is always higher than what you have to pay, no need skimping here and there when you have to make a claim... otherwise ring hibernian... why bother paying it at all if you are only covering certain risks , who knows what is going to happen

yourpics

Timber may be the only thing flammable, but the steel will succumb to a lot of damage if there is a fire

blue5000

Sometimes I wonder about insurance, ok we all should have public liability, but the guy who owns supermacs eventually got so p1ssed off with ppl slipping on wet floors etc. that he started fighting every case in court. His insurance is now a hell of a lot lower than when they just paid up every time someone slipped.

Likewise when you do make a claim 'your' insurance company does a hell of a lot of squirming and wriggling before you get paid.

whelan1

yes but , if you dont have insurance you are screwed.. i paid €5400 last week to fbd my father paid a bit lower ... but imagine if some one got attacked by a bull or something on your farm you would have to pay a hell of a lot more

snowman707

ravima wrote: »

you should have Employers Liability as well as Public Liability. You may have someone helping you to do a job who is hurt and if court deemed them to be an employee and you did not have Employer Liability cover, you are in trouble.

Cattle can be electrocuted outside as well. Lost a lovely bull some years ago, when ring got tangled in electric fence. Poor divil had a terrible death. cattle can also get hit by lightening outside.

remember at the end of the day, you get what you pay for. If you think that you don't need the cover, then don't take it out.................but don't go crying to insurance company if something goes wrong and you don't have the cover.

+1000


I have stated about employers liability many times here before and it usually gets ignored, you cannot stress the importance of this cover enough

snowman707

blue5000 wrote: »

Sometimes I wonder about insurance, ok we all should have public liability, but the guy who owns supermacs eventually got so p1ssed off with ppl slipping on wet floors etc. that he started fighting every case in court. His insurance is now a hell of a lot lower than when they just paid up every time someone slipped.

Likewise when you do make a claim 'your' insurance company does a hell of a lot of squirming and wriggling before you get paid.

the guy that "owns" supermacs most likely doesnt own it , it is most likely a leased property and if he loses a claim he has sfa to lose


claims to day could hit €2 million very easy,

if a farmer loses such a claim without cover the farm could be sold . to pay the injured party

blue5000

snowman707 wrote: »

the guy that "owns" supermacs most likely doesnt own it , it is most likely a leased property and if he loses a claim he has sfa to lose


claims to day could hit €2 million very easy,

if a farmer loses such a claim without cover the farm could be sold . to pay the injured party

I was talking about the guy who started supermacs, sorry can't remember his name.

The point I was making was that this whole sue 'compo' mentality has really gotten out of hand. If you shot and wounded a fcukin burglar in your own bedroom guess who'd come off better in court?

ravima

you might come across' better' and then you might not. However, who would pay your legal costs???

snowman707

blue5000 wrote: »

I was talking about the guy who started supermacs, sorry can't remember his name.

The point I was making was that this whole sue 'compo' mentality has really gotten out of hand. If you shot and wounded a fcukin burglar in your own bedroom guess who'd come off better in court?

If I shot him, only one of us would be going to court, i promise you that

Porbeagle

Regarding Employer's Liability, you have to be careful with this as well, as the FBD insurance standard only covers 'Casual Agricultural Labour'. I asked them does this cover an electrician friend doing a little wiring nixer for you, and no it doesn't, he has to have his own insurance, otherwise you need a different type of Employer's Liability Insurance again. So standard Employer's Liability Insurance with FBD is not going to cover all eventualities. I'm of the view that you definitely need the essentials like Public Liability or if you have someone working for you on the farm as an Agricultural Labourer, then you need Employer's Liability.
However, some of the other cover I would tend to question, e.g. electrocution, flood, storm damage. These premiums are going up every year, and in a way, you are paying out for other people's claims, as it will never be the Insurance company who suffers the loss, i.e. you always pay. You are sometimes better to calculate how much premium you would save each year by not having this cover and invest that in a deposit account/shares/bonds, some other investment which should act as your own insurance against the unlikely happening. As an example, we would save €500 a year on not having animals insured against electrocution & lighting or sheds against storm damage or lighting. If you work that out over say a 10 year period, assuming premiums stay constant (which I know they won't, they go up every year), that's €5000 before you even factor in a return from the bank account interest etc. That €5000 would easily cover the unlikely event of a few animals being killed in a lighting strike outside, and if you ensure the sheds are in good nick, then they should survive all the Atlantic has to throw at them (they have survived 20/30 years so far! and the Insurance company can squirm their way out of the claim anyhows if your building was structurally defective). If you are worried about a lightning strike against your shed, then install a lighting conductor. Insurance is all about probabilities and the Insurance companies know the probabilities of all these scenarios and build in a margin to ensure they are profitable - when did you last see an Insurance company go bust? If an Insurance company has a bad year, then they up the premiums for everyone, so you end up paying anyhow, even though you might never have claimed - house/flood premiums went up for everyone after the floods 2 years ago. And God forbid, if you do make a claim, then you premium will go up significantly and you try to get a quote off someone else for 5 years! Insurance companies have you screwed every which way.

I was told when I was on hols in New Zealand this year that their model is more like if you hurt yourself on public property, it is your own fault and not the Govt/public body, so people cannot sue the public authority. Not too sure what the story is with farmers over there, whether that same scenario applies, or do they have to have the same cover as here. The ligitatious culture here in Ireland is just adding to the cost of doing business (not to mind fattening up lawyers, solicitors, barristers and all the other hangers-on), whether it be farming or otherwise as it just ups Public Liability and Employer's Liability premiums etc.