Home Owners Insurance

[getaclue]

They don't know what you have until you tell them. If you report having 500 heads of beef, you are an agri-business, so it would be a different insurance plan.

 

[Acre4Me]

Likely depends on insurance company, and what you have, why, and if you are selling. Of course, your state may matter too (different types of rules/laws/liabilities per state).

When we bought our current place about a year ago, our agent (whom we’ve used for each home purchase -urban, suburban, and now rural) made it a point to tell us that if we planned to run a business out of our building on our lot (it is a 2000 sq ft barn) we would need an additional rider/policy OR might need to get another insurance company to insure the business/building. Since we are not running a business, I wanted to know an e ample of what would not be covered. Agent said bees/honey as a business is something they do not cover (not sure if they even cover bees/honey if used for personal use -didn’t ask). But chickens and selling eggs.. they cover that. Making furniture, also covered. These were examples he gave. Also, he said anything inside our home and attached garage was covered under home policy but the barn (as a structure) gets a rider/line item. A business in the barn is separate all together.

I would let them know your animals are for personal use exclusively. Nothing gets sold for money. Only if it is true, of course.

 

[canalcolt]

Thanks everyone. I feel as though what I'm reporting is a lot of animals.

Likely depends on insurance company, and what you have, why, and if you are selling. Of course, your state may matter too (different types of rules/laws/liabilities per state).

When we bought our current place about a year ago, our agent (whom we’ve used for each home purchase -urban, suburban, and now rural) made it a point to tell us that if we planned to run a business out of our building on our lot (it is a 2000 sq ft barn) we would need an additional rider/policy OR might need to get another insurance company to insure the business/building. Since we are not running a business, I wanted to know an e ample of what would not be covered. Agent said bees/honey as a business is something they do not cover (not sure if they even cover bees/honey if used for personal use -didn’t ask). But chickens and selling eggs.. they cover that. Making furniture, also covered. These were examples he gave. Also, he said anything inside our home and attached garage was covered under home policy but the barn (as a structure) gets a rider/line item. A business in the barn is separate all together.

I would let them know your animals are for personal use exclusively. Nothing gets sold for money. Only if it is true, of course.

Thanks for letting me know. We were thinking of bees in the future. I had no idea that a home owners insurance would be in all that. I just thought depending what you are selling or doing you would need insurance...like also in the future (when we move) I would love to have horses and possibly do trail rides. I feel as though I would need insurance for that. Just never knew for my chickens and nigerian dwarf goats!

 

[canalcolt]

I haven't responded yet, but I feel as though I have a lot of animals. But I truly do feel that 8 goats is sufficient and the number of chickens we have. Anyone else have 8 goats? lol. 3 of them are babies..which we decided to keep so we can rotate breeding better in the future. I guess then I'm thinking that I might have to state what we are going to do with future babies..but then again there's actually a lot of people that believe you can have milk with out breeding. I think I'm just going to say milk, eggs, and pets. Personal use only. I was also thinking maybe I should just say 5 goats so it doesn't seem like so many? The person might have thought the babies were chickens in the pen.

 

[trudyg]

Are you required to list how many? I would answer the question exactly and say nothing else. If you have 8 goats, you can still say 5 adults and 3 babies, and so on. You want to be 100% truthful while not opening the door for more questions. You are well within the realm of 'for personal use, meat, eggs and milk' here. Remember, insurance people see an awful lot of different scenarios and already have a good idea of what is reasonable and what is excessive. 50 chickens may seem like a lot, but not if you put 35 in the freezer every fall. That's only 1 a week, after all, for food.

 

[canalcolt]

Are you required to list how many? I would answer the question exactly and say nothing else. If you have 8 goats, you can still say 5 adults and 3 babies, and so on. You want to be 100% truthful while not opening the door for more questions. You are well within the realm of 'for personal use, meat, eggs and milk' here. Remember, insurance people see an awful lot of different scenarios and already have a good idea of what is reasonable and what is excessive. 50 chickens may seem like a lot, but not if you put 35 in the freezer every fall. That's only 1 a week, after all, for food.

Right. we were able to keep a decent amount of chickens last year. we didn't lose any to a predator but this year a fox has taken several out. Now i'm hesitant to butcher the new chickens since the fox might take out more of the other chickens.

 

[canalcolt]

I went ahead and let our insurance agent know. He responded with Great. Thanks. hopefully that means that's the end of the questions and everything is all clear!

 

[Folly's place]

This is something that needs to be discussed with the agent, everyone!
Every company has different policies, and they may not make sense to the rest of us.
For example, A couple of years ago I checked with Traveler's for a farm policy. Horses, cattle, dogs, all fine. Chickens, NO WAY! They didn't ask how many, it didn't matter.
Make sure your policy works for the animals you have, because it may not.
Liability is huge, and a claim not covered could be a total disaster.
Mary

 

[canalcolt]

This is something that needs to be discussed with the agent, everyone!
Every company has different policies, and they may not make sense to the rest of us.
For example, A couple of years ago I checked with Traveler's for a farm policy. Horses, cattle, dogs, all fine. Chickens, NO WAY! They didn't ask how many, it didn't matter.
Make sure your policy works for the animals you have, because it may not.
Liability is huge, and a claim not covered could be a total disaster.
Mary

This is definitely an eye opener for me. After we moved we got chickens and goats. I didn't know it mattered about chickens and goats. I remember when we bought this house they asked if we had horses or dogs and that was it. But in the future I do aim to own a horse (not at this house though..need more land) and potentially offering trail riding. When we move I will be bringing up that we will own horses one day and see how that goes.
This only came up because our escrow for the house was so high this year! They wanted me to pay $500 upfront plus an extra $30 every month on the mortgage. That's why we switched.

 

[Folly's place]

Privately owning horses and offering trail rides, or boarding any livestock, or whatever, are all different categories, needing different riders on policies, with different costs.
Again, liability! My worst nightmare involves a horse or steer getting on the road and killing a family!!!
Never mind the animal, what covers that?!?
Just be sure that your company can't have a reason to deny a claim because something isn't covered...
Mary