Most farmers don’t wake up one morning and decide, “today I’m going to completely change my operation!”

These things happen gradually.

Maybe you added a few more acres year one. Year two brought a new tractor and more livestock. The third year, you finally added that building you’ve been thinking about and used a portion of it to tack on a side business…which now brings in real money.

So, here you are, five years later, and your farm operation looks considerably different than it did then.

When was the last time your insurance policy actually caught up with those changes, rather than simply renewing on auto-pilot?

 

Let’s briefly look at five subtle changes that can easily get overlooked when no one is paying close attention:

1. Your property values have changed

Buildings, equipment, and other farm property may cost substantially more to replace today than when you initially insured them.

Has your automatic 4% increase kept pace with the actual cost of replacing your buildings and equipment?

How about the new buildings you added over the summer? Were those properly accounted for?

2. Your operation has expanded

More acreage, livestock, additional employees, new customers, equipment, or locations can increase your overall risk.

Throughout the year, seemingly routine decisions carry with them insurance implications that are easy to overlook when you’re already juggling 100 other things.

Did last year’s insurance plan anticipate this year’s operational reality?

3. You’ve added new activities

Maybe you started selling directly to the public and added a roadside stand.

Perhaps you picked up custom farming or opened your farm to visitors and began hosting events.

These activities can change your risk profile more than you might expect.

My wife and I went apple picking this past weekend, and it got me thinking:

What would happen if you had added something like that to your farm operation over the past couple years and never properly accounted for it?

Would your insurance respond if someone was injured on your property, or would you find out there was a problem with your coverage when you needed it most?

4. Your equipment has changed

Over five years, you may have sold off older equipment and replaced it with substantially more expensive machinery.

When equipment is financed, it’s easy to remember to add them to your policy, because coverage is often required as part of the financing.

But what about everything else?

You’re busy. You bought that tractor, UTV, or other equipment because you needed it to finish a task. You weren’t necessarily thinking about how it would change your overall insurance picture.

Take a look at how much equipment you’ve acquired over the past five years.

Did you plan on owning all that five years ago?

5. Your liability exposures have changed

Sometimes the biggest change has nothing to do with what you own, but who your farm is interacting with.

Have you started allowing hunters on your property?

Are customers coming onto the farm?

Have you added employees, contractors, visitors, or some of the activities mentioned above?

Those changes can create liability exposures that didn’t exist before.

This is worth paying attention to because the biggest insurance concern isn’t always what you own, it’s what you could lose.

A lot can change when we’re not paying close attention to it.

We tend to focus on the big decisions and assume the smaller ones will work themselves out. But over time, the small changes can add up to a very different farm operation.

The question isn’t whether your insurance was right five years ago.

The question is whether it’s still right for the farm you have today.

Do we review coverage because the calendar says it’s time, or do we review coverage because the farm has changed?