Insurance help! What do y'all do for farm insurance?

I cant believe it's come to this, the farm is really making enough money these days that I am thinking about insurance! Amazing, I never thought it would come to this.

So I am a farmer, not a lawyer, thank god. I hear all these terms tossed around like 'umbrella policy', 'general liability', 'specific product liability', etc. I barely know what an umbrella is, and certainly no comprende insurance-speak.

Bottom line is, what do I need to know about insuring the farm and its operations? I have visitors to the farm at times. I sell meat, milk, and produce farm direct to my customers. I am all good with my location insurance for the farmers market, but I have no idea about things that actually happen on-farm.

Any help or experienced advice much appreciated!

Good question, I would like to know about this too, so here is a bump back to the top Adam.

We pray to Gaia and bury the bodies in a Hugel bed.


Seriously though, call a Farm Bureau Insurance agent. I've had pretty good luck with them being honest and not trying to sell me stuff I don't need. And read the internet to educate yourself http://www.agweb.com/article/farm_liability_insurance_do_you_have_enough_coverage/

For normal farm operations, I go with simple liability - not very expensive.

For meat sales, I organize under a LLC to cap the assets in any rare liability judgment.

My neighbor just had a cow escape in a lightning storm this year - got struck by a truck on the road causing $20k in damage! His liability policy covered it..

I've been going back and forth with them lately as well. Don't forget to ask about product liability too, even if you don't need it right now, it can open doors for you that might otherwise be closed in regards to marketing.

Our farm bureau was pretty sorry here, I've really liked talking with our Nationwide agent (although she has the entire western half of the state to deal with)... our farm bureau agents didn't have a clue about their own products and were incredibly hard to get them to return my calls. I took that as a sign, if they were that hard to get them to take my money from me, I would probably have a real hard time when money was going in the opposite way...

To date, we still haven't bought any insurance, we may have another year or possibly two years before it is an absolute necessity. Please keep this thread updated as I would like to hear how your adventure goes

I'm hoping to piggy back on this question as well. I have a few acres behind my house that I might put into either hay or pasture for rotational grazing. I have talked to my one neighbor who does hay for some of his land and he mentioned just adding a rider to his homeowners insurance which he said is under $50. Is anyone else in a similar situation or recommend anything else? Thanks.
Dave