Why is it important to insure your farming equipment?
It is extremely important to ensure your farming equipment is fully insured as you are essentially insuring your entire livelihood.
Your farming equipment includes far more than you may imagine and therefore your insurance should cover every aspect of your farm - from your livestock, including their pens and sheds, to machinery, vehicles and even your home.
Farm insurance is available in many different policies that cover a range of different things. You don’t want to just settle for one because it is cheap and looks good – it could have exclusions that will mean you might as well not have it at all. Cheap insurance is a false economy if, for example, it turns out your insurance does not cover water damage, and that is what you are claiming against.
Therefore it is important that you get cover from a leading farm insurance provider so you can guarantee you have the right plan to protect all the parts that come together to generate your income.
If you don’t have insurance the loss of a tractor, your flock of sheep or everyday tools and machinery won’t only cost you a huge amount to replace, but will also lose you a significant amount of your income as you can’t continue all areas of your work without them.
Research that looks into rural crime across the UK found that rural theft cost an estimated £37.8m in the UK during 2014, although this was down 15% on 2013’s high of £44.5m. The worst affected counties included Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Essex. It found that in Surrey alone nearly seven out of every 10 rural crime thefts were from farms and rural businesses. Among the most targeted items were tools, oil diesel, machinery as well as vehicles and tractors.
However, thieves don’t only target equipment – in many areas livestock crime is on the increase - particularly across Wales, the Midlands, East of England and Northern Ireland.
Earlier this year, Lincolnshire farmer Jason Steeper had 600 sheep, including 400 lambs, stolen from his field. The flock were insured for £50,000 however it is believed they would have been worth £100,000 by the time the spring lambs matured. As a result, they may now be forced to give up the business they spent eight years building up.
This was far from an isolated incident; there have been several reports of sheep being stolen across the country. But what this does show is the importance of being fully insured, because being underinsured can have as many implications as not being insured at all. Calculate the value of possessions and assets to get the right level of cover for your particular farm – it is worth paying a little extra to give you peace of mind that you are fully covered.
Likewise, theft isn’t the only thing your livelihood is at risk from and should the worst happen, such as a fire or flood, and your entire property were to be destroyed, without insurance you will have far more to worry about than the cost of replacing a tractor.
Insuring your belongings and property is always important, but when those belongings and property are your business and the loss or damage to them could destroy your livelihood, then having the correct insurance becomes imperative.