What Details Do I Need To Provide To Get Valid Farm Insurance?

If you’re getting a quote for farm insurance, it’s best to have all the details of your farm on hand. But what kind of questions will your provider ask?

Farm insurance companies need to know in-depth details about your farm and how it operates. If you can’t or won’t provide this information, they won’t be able to give you a quote.

Read on to find out:

• What buildings information does my farm insurance need?
• Does my farm insurance need financial information?
• What details should I provide about livestock, crops and machinery?

Sometimes, it seems like farm insurance providers want to know everything about you down to your favourite colour and second cousin’s maiden name. But your insurance provider asks so many questions because they need to accurately assess the risk of insuring you.

What buildings information does my farm insurance need?

When you first take out farm insurance, you need to tell them about the physical structures on your farm.

Knowing what buildings and structures are involved, their age and composition materials, helps the insurance provider understand how vulnerable they are to fire, flood and other risks. In the event of storm damage, knowing your eircode helps them find out if this was a freak accident or likely to be a more regular occurrence.

At a minimum, make sure you tell your insurance provider:

• About your farmhouse. How old is it, how large is it, how many people live there and what is it made of?
• The combined value of the contents inside your home
• Any outbuildings and sheds. What are they made of, and what are they used for? Are they secure and new, or old and in ruins?
• The rebuild cost or sum insured for your farmhouse and outbuildings
• Details of fences, hedges and other boundaries
• The eircode of your farm (its exact address)
• Any fire alarms, sprinklers, fire blankets, burglar alarms, security cameras, or other safety equipment present in your home or outbuildings
• How far is the nearest fire station and garda station

It’s also extremely useful to provide up to date photographs of your home and outbuildings, which will give your insurance provider greater context. Having all this information prepared beforehand will save a lot of time and fuss if the worst should happen, and ensure no one forgets anything important.

Does my farm insurance need financial information?

Your insurance provider may want to know about your annual income, just to be able to work out if you can afford the premiums they give you, or if you’ll have trouble paying.

They shouldn’t need your accounts or in-depth financial reports. However, they will want to know about your employees.

If anyone else is working on your farm on a permanent, part-time or seasonal basis, you will need employers’ liability insurance to cover them in the event of an accident.

If your family helps out, employers’ liability insurance also covers them and other unpaid workers or volunteers you have on your farm. However they must be aged over 16 if you are insured with FBD, Aviva or Zurich. If you are insured with Axa, they must be aged over 14.

When you ask for a quote for this kind of insurance, we will need to know if they are members of your family, how old they are (over 14 or not), if they are non-family volunteers or paid employees.

What details should I provide about livestock, crops and machinery?

No matter if you farm livestock or arable land, you need machinery to do so. But farm machinery and equipment are subject to a wide array of risks including fire and flood. From tractors, combine harvesters, balers and wrappers to quad bikes and mowers, you need to make sure your farm insurance covers these natural factors as well as the very high risk of theft.

Tell your provider about all the machinery and agricultural equipment you own, their value, their condition and where they are stored overnight.

Some of your machinery, such as tractors and ATV’s, might be driven on a public road. If this is the case, then your farm vehicle will need to have Third Party Only insurance. This is the minimum cover you need to drive on the roads in Ireland.

It’s always a good idea to get extra coverage for peace of mind. Tractor insurance – be it third party, third party fire and theft or comprehensive – is available from many different providers, and you can also cover multiple farm vehicles under one policy. Like an employer’s fleet policy, this means all your vehicles have cover for peace of mind.

For livestock, we need to know all about them, including:

• Head counts and types of livestock
• Breeds and ages
• Vet information and medical history
• Where they are on your farm

Talk with our experts about your farm insurance

As always, when it comes to farm insurance the more information you can provide about your farm and its assets the better. Why not give us a call and talk to our expert farm insurance experts today. We look forward to working with you!