OUTDOORS Farm insurance – upside down, inside out

Insurance – it’s the wrong way round


Growing your own
Chris Brown

It has always been my opinion that the insurance industry is holding back Ireland’s progress and is stifling enterprise. Insurance is forced upon us, and rather than helping, it has become a costly burden that prevents ventures from starting up.
It’s easy to see that the cost of having to have a compulsory insurance policy to cover up to €6.4 million for a market stall is stopping markets from getting going. This is a great shame because a thriving market gives people the opportunity to grow produce and craft goods for it; not only creating employment, but moving our destiny away from the control of globalism.
Aside from being a financial obstacle, insurance companies currently place liability at the wrong door. Take for instance a phone call I had with my insurers the other week. I was told that regardless of gates and signage being in place, a trespasser on the farm (and this includes burglars) could claim if they had an accident and that I’d be the one to have to pay the premium for them!
How can this be fair? Surely it is the wrong way round. I mean, I pay to insure my van for example, so that I can drive it, not so that someone who steals it has cover.
In my circumstance, the price to insure the intruder, on top of my farm multi-peril insurance, is an extra €200 a year, and I am sure that others – shop keepers, builders, trades people and the like – may well have to pay considerably more than this. When I asked whether this extra cover would insure me to show a party of school children round the vegetable gardens, I was told, “Oh no, it doesn’t cover you for that.”
So there it is: Pay a premium to cover a burglar having a mishap, but don’t show a group of children the wonders of the soil because you’re not insured to do so. Come on! This can’t be right. When an intruder enters a property it should be simple enough for it to be known that he, she or they forgo the right to make an insurance claim because they are trespassing.

Safety First
The money used to pay this extra premium could be put to better use and help to make farms and other work environments a safer place where fewer accidents happen. 
Along with the building trade, statistics show that farming is the most dangerous profession we have. Imagine if that extra premium money was spent instead on safety equipment and a yearly inspection by someone that understands the perils encountered when handling tractors, power tools, livestock, the nasty blackthorn and the many other hazards faced on a daily basis that can cause injury.
We are an agricultural nation with a lot to achieve ahead of us, and the passing on of knowledge in a safe working environment is of the utmost importance – and yet the insurance barrier we have allowed to get in the way is preventing this from happening.
There are plenty of decent ‘old bucks’ around who would be only too pleased to show today’s youth how to turn the soil over to potatoes or keep a few hens and many other practical skills, but are not able to do so because they aren’t insured. A disclaimer should be all it takes to turn things around. That is to say a sign that reads ‘You are not insured on these premises’ should hold water. People would then have a choice – they could either insure themselves, as you do when going on holiday; they could decide not to enter because they are not covered; or or they come on in and discover the pleasures of helping clean out the pig sty.

Next time Why organic?

Chris Brown runs Brown’s Farm, a small farm in Louisburgh. He is an advocate of sustainable, natural farming methods and buying local.