getting homeowners insurance if we sell broiler chickens

[Tlafferty502]

Make sure the agent understands that you will have them butchered and packaged legally and they will not be live chickens that you are selling. Other than that, I would suggest forming a legally taxable business and insuring through your business. When the home policy agent asks about the business on your land, simply explain that the business and house are separate and refer them to your business insurance agency if they want to ask about your business insurance. Forming a legitimate business would be the best way to go about this. I've found that insurance agents don't like it when you sell stuff from your property but aren't registered as a tax paying business. Another option is to not even mention the chickens for sale thing and hope they don't ask...

Another thing to note is that as a general rule, it is very difficult and expensive to insure small poultry operations. I have been through the process several years ago now and still have to deal with my insurance company's BS all the time - like yearly.

We do have a legally taxable business. We were told that even if we got separate business insurance they still would not cover our home because the chickens were sold from the same property. We would have to subdivide the property to do this and we are not willing to do that at this time. Its such a hassle. We have thought of not mentioning they were for sale, I'm worried though that should anything ever happen, we would get in trouble and we are trying to do everything by the book to cover our end.

 

[Tlafferty502]

I wonder if some "Big wig" from State Farm was pecked by a chicken, as a child!

HA! I thought the same, but we are getting the same from every insurance agent we talk to!

 

[Tlafferty502]

Since it is that universal across insurance companies something is going on. I strongly suspect it has something to do with Pennsylvania state law. It is not going to be Federal, not at your level of production. I trust you've asked them why, to try to get to the root cause of the denial. Until you know why you can't do anything about it. I might call your State Farm agent and try to get to that root cause. The why is not that you are selling from your property. The why is what makes that uninsurable.

I'd also suggest you get in touch with the Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner's office and ask them what is going on. They should know. Don't hesitate to call your state representative or senator, whatever you have in your state if the insurance commissioner's office gives you the run-around. Sometimes all it takes is a question from them to get people off their butt.

To me the real frustration is not knowing why. You feel helpless because you don't know what to do.

We were told by state farm it is the salmonella risk. That someone would get sick from our birds. I'm not sure how to get around that. We process under the PA state processing exemption which is 1000 birds or less annually and our butcher is registered with the PA dept of agriculture and our storage facility is inspected by the PA dept of agriculture. So I'm not sure what else we can do to lessen the salmonella risk on our end.
We will definitely try the Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioners Office, thanks!!!

 

[iwltfum]

We were told by state farm it is the salmonella risk. That someone would get sick from our birds. I'm not sure how to get around that. We process under the PA state processing exemption which is 1000 birds or less annually and our butcher is registered with the PA dept of agriculture and our storage facility is inspected by the PA dept of agriculture. So I'm not sure what else we can do to lessen the salmonella risk on our end.
We will definitely try the Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioners Office, thanks!!!

Ah. That's interesting and a bummer. I was told by several different insurers that if I was selling live poultry, that would be a problem. Both in Maine and Colorado. As I'm sure you know, states are all different in their poultry laws, but most insurance companies have broad policies in place regarding these types of situations that are followed on a companywide scale. It seems that if they are claiming they are unable to insure you because of risk of someone getting sick, maybe all you would need is a product liability policy to cover you in case someone did get sick. I wonder if they would honor that? We have a hefty liability policy as required by our state for our farm. That policy is through a separate carrier through our standard farm and product liability policy (that doesn't even cover the poultry processing part of it, which is through, yet another carrier). It get's complicated pretty quickly. Those two extra policies are 4x the cost of what our base product liability policy is.

 

[Tlafferty502]

Ah. That's interesting and a bummer. I was told by several different insurers that if I was selling live poultry, that would be a problem. Both in Maine and Colorado. As I'm sure you know, states are all different in their poultry laws, but most insurance companies have broad policies in place regarding these types of situations that are followed on a companywide scale. It seems that if they are claiming they are unable to insure you because of risk of someone getting sick, maybe all you would need is a product liability policy to cover you in case someone did get sick. I wonder if they would honor that? We have a hefty liability policy as required by our state for our farm. That policy is through a separate carrier through our standard farm and product liability policy (that doesn't even cover the poultry processing part of it, which is through, yet another carrier). It get's complicated pretty quickly. Those two extra policies our 4x the cost of what are base product liability policy is.

I will inquire about the product liability policy. Thanks! One of the agencies that was sure he could find something to cover us did say that it might end up costing more than we are profiting at the moment. In which case we would have to end the chicken side of things and go another meat route. In the end, he couldn't find a policy that would cover us either though.
We do plan to incorporate other animals but we did so well this year with the chickens and there is definitely more growth potential there so I really would hate to not be able to continue!

 

[cmom]

I live in Florida. I have State Farm and never had an issue. I have in the past sold birds on the property but now I take them to our local farm swap to sell. It may be something connected to your state. In years past we had the farm swaps here on the farm but we couldn't get any event insurance. We contacted our local TSC and now we have them there. It's been many years so now we have good turnouts. Good luck...

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I live in Florida. I have State Farm and never had an issue. I have in the past sold birds on the property but now I take them to our local farm swap to sell. It may be something connected to your state. In years past we had the farm swaps here on the farm but we couldn't get any event insurance. We contacted our local TSC and now we have them there. It's been many years so now we have good turnouts. Good luck...

You don't sell processed birds though, do you, @cmom?

 

[cmom]

No, only live birds. I have had a fellow process some birds here but not in a very long time.

 

[iwltfum]

I will inquire about the product liability policy. Thanks! One of the agencies that was sure he could find something to cover us did say that it might end up costing more than we are profiting at the moment. In which case we would have to end the chicken side of things and go another meat route. In the end, he couldn't find a policy that would cover us either though.
We do plan to incorporate other animals but we did so well this year with the chickens and there is definitely more growth potential there so I really would hate to not be able to continue!

Yeah that's frustrating. After I included all the dang red tape as part of my costs, I ended up having to scale up way more than I figured I would.

 

[igorsMistress]

You might want to look into a small business policy. Your liability on your homeowners policy follows you world wide so on or off premises it won’t cover your liability. Since chickens are considered “high risk” for salmonella and such, which is transferable to humans, the insurance companies don’t want to touch it. That’s why not chickens. You could also talk to someone about an LLC.