We Make Insurance Easy
We Make Insurance Easy
We Make Insurance Easy
You know your farm. We know insurance.
More accurately... we love insurance!
4 tips for insuring lifestyle properties - what insurance do you really need?
You have a few acres, but it's not a working farm, so what insurance do you really need to protect your home, your family and any visitors to your property?
Read on for our Tips for Insuring Lifestyle Properties in the Macedon Ranges and beyond, or skip to the end and get in touch for a no obligation review of your insurance needs.
How many acres are you on?
5 acres used to be the cut off for most insurers where they would no longer accept you on a standard Home Insurance product, but that's no longer the case with the majority of insurers on our panel now considering lifestyle properties.
If you've been told that you need Farm Insurance but you don't have a working farm please get in touch so we can discuss your options.
Do you have any animals?
Different insurers have different thresholds when it comes to livestock, some will freak out over 1 cow, others might have a cut off of 6-7 animals in total.
More importantly - some direct insurers specifically list the animals that they want to cover such as dogs, cats and horses. So if you have a sheep or a llama get out on the road you may not be covered, an important one to watch out for if you're doing your own insurance.
But generally speaking, the more animals you have the greater the chance of liability incidents such as personal injury and third party vehicle damage from escapees getting on the road.
"But we only have a few sheep..."
This might be one reason for needing Farm Liability Insurance, but if you just have a few pet 'lawn mowers' to keep the grass down you may also be fine on a regular Home Insurance product depending on the insurer's underwriting guidelines and policy wording.
Do you have any farm vehicles?
One of the biggest misconceptions with Home Insurance is that everything in the shed is Contents and unfortunately this is not the case.
If you check out the the Definition of what are Home Contents you'll see that small motorbikes and ride on mowers are usually fine, but farm bikes, tractors, fire trailers, horse floats, caravans, boats etc. all need to be insured as vehicles if you want them covered.
In some cases we would recommend separate policies like Farm Motor Insurance, Caravan Insurance or Pleasurecraft Insurance, and sometimes you might be better off bundling everything together on a Farm Insurance product.
This is particularly important when it comes to the liability risks connected with these vehicles. Grass fires are a common occurrence where you could be liable for damage to neighbouring properties, along with personal injury to visitors.
You can sometimes avoid the need for Farm Insurance by registering your vehicles, but in other situations a Farm Package is the way to go.
We can help you work through these options and provide clear recommendations to help in your decision.
Are you going to make a go of it?
If you've decided to utilise your property with anything that generates income (that's bringing any money in, not necessarily turning a profit...) then you might need to consider Farm Insurance to make sure that all of your buildings, equipment and infrastructure will be covered correctly.
We can support you with an insurance program that will work for you and help you achieve your goals, whether that's enjoying your own space with a few pet goats, starting a micro farming enterprise, or using the space to start another type of business.
You don't have to go it alone, and you don't need to spend hours on the phone with direct insurers going round in circles. Save yourself some time by contacting a qualified insurance broker for a no obligation insurance review, there is no cost involved unless you decide to go ahead.
Ready to start working with us?