I'm in several regional growers and farmers' groups, and I've never seen
any of this stuff discussed except for the occasional "I need insurance, who do
I talk to" email sent out to the various groups. That's been the extent of
it so far. I suspect a lot of folks have followed the don't-ask-don't-tell
approach so it's almost a taboo topic. I also suspect a lot of folks are
simply running without insurance at all, or just crossing their fingers and
hoping that their residential insurance policy covers it. That's what we were
doing until we learned that our residential insurance policy not only wouldn't
cover a lot of this stuff, but would be canceled outright if it came to
light we were engaged in these farming activities. That's when we knew we
had to find something else.
As for whether every insurer in the state of WA has similar policies, I
can't say with 100% certainty. But I can say that when we first started
shopping for coverage three years ago, we talked to three different insurers who
claimed to do farm insurance of some kind. But when we said we did meat
and eggs, that ended the conversation right there. I had landed with
Nationwide because they didn't stop the conversation at that point; they still
offered coverage for all the farm activities we were doing at the time. I
suspect in the intervening months, they have reached a corporate decision that
they don't want to stay in the farm insurance biz, because right now the
underwriter is throwing every possible obstacle in our path that he can think
of. The two other insurance agents I've talked to, have had to
shop around for policy coverage from national and/or out of state
sources. But if those policies are national in coverage, then growers in
other states would have similar issues.
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
In a message dated 3/8/2013 9:53:23 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
rstewart AT zoomtown.com writes:
Is it the same with every insurer in the State of Washington? The
dried grains is absurd as most farms dry on site. Are you a member of a
farming group?
We board horses, but Carriage House Farm does not board them.
Riverwind Stable another LLC does that. That company leases space
from Carriage House Farm. The State of Ohio also has a lot of common
sense liability codes that no one can sue an equine facility unless it is
irresponsibly negligent. This helps tremendously with insurance.
I'd ditch the equipment repair business and follow a don't ask don't tell
policy.
Sent from my iPhone
I sent through a reply this morning but it doesn't seem to have gone
through. I'll try again, but here's an advance apology if things go
through twice.
You are correct that we did
have a lot up in the air earlier this year; I'm happy to report most of
those questions have now been answered. However, I don't think
that's the issue. And this goes way beyond meat production, and
way beyond local regulations. Some other activities which are
specifically listed as reasons to deny a policy:
on-farm grain
drying
any kind of fruit juice,
unless it's pasteurized
repair of machinery for a fee
(for instance, if folks repair farm implements for other folks during the
winter)horseback riding lessons, horse training for others, and/or horse
boarding
In addition to the above, sometimes a product or activity is
allowed, but only if I followed the insurance company's procedure.
So I can do turkeys and chicken, but only if the birds leave the
property for slaughtering and don't come back. That's in direct
conflict with state law, for any state with on-farm small-scale slaughter
exemptions. Similarly, I can do grains, but only if the grains
leave the property right after harvest to be dried off-site. That
rules out any sort of on-farm value-added processing; it may also rule out
drying and storage for our own use. I can do hay, as long as
the bales are stored in the field. If I wanted to store hay in
a barn close to the house, I'd have to exclude the barn from
coverage. If I wanted to protect the barn, I'd have to find
another place to cover/protect my hay. I found myself wondering
how many folks are going to be progressively excluded from more and more
typical farm operations as they acquire or renew policies, because of
these kinds of ever-tightening criteria.
Since the FSMA is very heavy on procedural changes and verification,
I found myself wondering if the next wave of insurance leverage would be
(or might already be) to deny coverage if farms didn't follow certain
insurance-company-mandated procedures with their veggie
handling. If the kinds of discrepancies I've seen in meat
production are any indicator, insurance company procedures for fresh
veggie production won't match state/federal regs. Under
that scenario, folks will have to decide if they're going to comply with
FSMA, or be insured. My concern is that they won't be able to do
both.
If this isn't an issue yet with fresh produce, that's good news at
least in the short term. But the list of excluded activities is
getting longer by the day. I can't imagine fresh produce is going to
escape the attention of the insurance industry for very long. I
suggest folks keep an eye out for these developments. I'd also
suggest folks who already have insurance, check to see what might have
recently been excluded from coverage under a general umbrella policy.
For each of these specifically excluded items, we can get additional
policies just for those items. But of course at additional, and
sometimes much higher cost. That's where I think this is going.
Individual itemized coverage for each type of farm activity, and the
small guy will be priced out of the market. I hope I'm proven
wrong.
Kathryn Kerby
Snohomish, WA
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