Getting homeowners insurance if we sell broiler chickens

[Tlafferty502]

Hello,
Wondering if anyone has had this problem and if so, how they solved it. We bought a 12 acre farm property in Pennsylvania and we are starting a business raising broilers on the property in chicken tractors in our pasture. We are very small scale at the moment with only 3 chicken tractors and have sold 200 birds this year.
The problem is, our current insurance agent (state farm) will not insure us at all if we SELL chickens from this property. They won't insure the house or property. We are allowed to own pet chickens but if we SELL them we cant get insurance for our home/property.
We are legal in all other areas of the business but obviously need to have insurance for our home/property. We have contacted other insurance agencies and they are saying the same.... that they can not insure us if we sell the birds. Our insurance says they will insure us if we raise/sell pigs or cows (basically any other animal) but not chickens.
We have checked into farm/ranch policies and get the same answer - not eligible for coverage if we SELL chickens from this property.
This is insane to me. Why is this so hard? We can't be the only people to ever start a business raising/selling chickens.
We raise the birds from chicks, sell them while they are still alive, we have a mobile butcher come to the property who butchers and packages the birds, customers come and pick up their whole birds on butcher day or we freeze them until they can pick up (our freezers are inspected and approved for the business).
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I know butchering birds is different business wise than other animals. Butchers are supposed to have a different type of set up and practices. That's all I know though

 

[svh]

What if you sell them the box/bag ..... It just happens to some complimentary chicken carcasses in it !!!

Sorry for the levity, BUT people around here sell gift boxes, and bags, that have complimentary deer sausage in them.

 

[Tlafferty502]

I know butchering birds is different business wise than other animals. Butchers are supposed to have a different type of set up and practices. That's all I know though

yes, one day we would like to butcher our own, but that is down the road as my husband still has a full time job and we would need to build a facility that followed all the butchering rules. Our mobile butcher has been doing this for quite some time and has a really interesting set up!

 

[Tlafferty502]

What if you sell them the box/bag ..... It just happens to some complimentary chicken carcasses in it !!!

Sorry for the levity, BUT people around here sell gift boxes, and bags, that have complimentary deer sausage in them.

That may be a possibility we have to look into! We do want to incorporate other meat types in the future (pigs in the spring!) but we did so well this year with the chickens that I would love to keep it going somehow!
I'd love to keep it by the book, but it is almost like they want to make it hard for the little guys to get started!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

So maybe do a mixed meat basket that might include chicken?

 

[Tlafferty502]

We may just do that!

 

[AgnesGray]

Hello,
Wondering if anyone has had this problem and if so, how they solved it. We bought a 12 acre farm property in Pennsylvania and we are starting a business raising broilers on the property in chicken tractors in our pasture. We are very small scale at the moment with only 3 chicken tractors and have sold 200 birds this year.
The problem is, our current insurance agent (state farm) will not insure us at all if we SELL chickens from this property. They won't insure the house or property. We are allowed to own pet chickens but if we SELL them we cant get insurance for our home/property.
We are legal in all other areas of the business but obviously need to have insurance for our home/property. We have contacted other insurance agencies and they are saying the same.... that they can not insure us if we sell the birds. Our insurance says they will insure us if we raise/sell pigs or cows (basically any other animal) but not chickens.
We have checked into farm/ranch policies and get the same answer - not eligible for coverage if we SELL chickens from this property.
This is insane to me. Why is this so hard? We can't be the only people to ever start a business raising/selling chickens.
We raise the birds from chicks, sell them while they are still alive, we have a mobile butcher come to the property who butchers and packages the birds, customers come and pick up their whole birds on butcher day or we freeze them until they can pick up (our freezers are inspected and approved for the business).
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

I have Erie for homeowner insurance and have incidental farm liability. Since I have a hobby farm (it's not my main occupation) I don't have a farm policy. They asked me how many chickens during the quoting process and didn't ask what they would be used for (meat or eggs). I also covered my farm equipment under a section for farm equipment right on the homeowner policy. It is well suited for small farms.

 

[Acre4Me]

Keep looking. We have SF, but not a large property. There is a barn, and agent specifically said if we have a business in the barn or on property that they may not be able to insure, but the home would still be able to be insured- we could do anything we wanted IN the home snd it would be insured, but outside the house was a different matter. SF will NOT insure beekeeping at all- he related a story about client that started hives for fun/hobby/themselves. They expanded and had excess, so started to sell. Had to find other insurance (I think for the business or barn).

 

[rayrose]

They won't insure you under your HO policy, because you're running a business on the property. This opens you up to potential big liability risk, which HO is not designed to cover. You need a separate business policy.