As someone who belongs to the demanding Ag industry, you know there's more than enough on your own plate while you're working to put food on the tables of others. Why add "figuring out my farm insurance blueprint" to the growing to-do list? After all, building an insurance policy to cover a farm and all its moving parts adequately is far from simple. You're not a hobby farmer - this isn't a side gig to you. Operating your farm is your moneymaker, your way of life. Because your farm generates income, it will need far more complex coverage than a standard home insurance policy can offer.
As a company backed by a 153-year-old Farm Mutual started in rural Missouri, you could say we now know a thing or two about farm life and how to protect it for generations. We have a dedicated Farm Underwriting Supervisor, Robin, to organize the meticulous buildout of farm policies submitted by our Oklahoma & Arkansas agents for their CNI customers. So, take a much-needed break and let us walk you through the insurance part of your business with the help of Robin. That way, you can confidently determine the best coverage match for your unique farm - big or small.
Farm insurance coverage forms are broken up into three categories: Basic, Broad, and Special. As you could venture to guess, Basic Form coverage is the most restrictive level, with Broad and Special Form coverage offering greater defense against threats to your farm.
Includes all the basic coverages above, plus the following:
Special Form does not specifically list perils; instead, it is “all-risk” coverage unless otherwise excluded by your policy. In other words, unless the policy states a peril isn't included, it's included and should cover your potential loss. Typically, Special Form coverage is the preferred level of protection you'll want for your farm. But because it is more comprehensive coverage, many companies will require that your property has certain updates.
Home & Contents
Farm Personal Property/Structures
Farm Liability
Livestock
At CNI, we understand farms. Considering the decades of farm underwriting and claim handling experience under our team's belt, CNI has built several policy types designed to best cover the various levels of investments hanging out on your farm. By offering customizable protection for your machinery and equipment to your home and livestock, CNI can keep your livelihood safe against common threats like Mother Nature, theft, breakdown, and much more.
Remember our knowledgeable Farm Underwriting Supervisor, Robin, mentioned earlier? Well, she's here to breakdown those policies and provide valuable underwriting insight along the way, so you can get a better idea of what insurance offering would fit your farm for the long haul.
Underwriter Insight: While each farm policy provides different levels of coverage for varying levels of farm exposures, you'll find that the only factor affecting each category of protection depends primarily on the dwelling value. If your farm home is expensive and brand new, it will likely fall under our Exclusive program. On the flip side, if your farm home is more modest in size and older, seeing few updates throughout the years, it may not be valued as high as an 'Exclusive' home. The value of your primary residence will ultimately be the driving factor as to what policy type your farm will be placed with.
Offers Replacement Cost Coverage: This term refers to the amount of money it would take to replace your damaged or destroyed home with the exact same or similar home in today's market.
Minimum Dwelling Value: $250,000.
Dwelling Age: 25 years or less.
Insured Loss History: No losses in the past three years, with the exception of one past wind or hail claim.
Underwriter Insight: Any farmhouse with solid fuel or wood heat systems as the primary source of heat would not be accepted under CNI's Underwriting Guidelines. Through the lens of an insurance underwriter, fireplaces are great for featuring mantle decorations over the holidays or providing that cozy, Instagram-worthy spot to curl up by on movie nights. But they're simply not meant to serve as a home's sole heat source during those brutal winters. The same goes for wood burning stoves - they should act as a supplemental source of heat - not the only source of heat.
Offers Replacement Cost Coverage
Minimum Dwelling Value: $100,000
Dwelling Age: 60 years or less.
Offers Replacement Cost Coverage
Minimum Dwelling Value: $60,000
Dwelling Age: 70 years or less.
A Contents policy is the perfect coverage option for your personal property and all farm items owned at the land you farm. For example, if you rent the house on the property you farm but still want adequate insurance protection for all your owned equipment, tools, livestock, and all other personal property items, an FO-4 Contents policy would be an ideal fit for you.
Farmowners Equipment Breakdown, Service Line, & Inland Flood Coverage
As a farmer, you know breakdowns can be a pretty common occurrence during a farm workday. Equipment Breakdown Coverage automatically comes with all our farm policies by default. Farmowners Equipment Breakdown coverage protects equipment against the perils of mechanical, electrical and pressure systems breakdown, which are restricted/excluded perils in the underlying form binding coverage in your farm insurance policy. Equipment Breakdown coverage also covers the farm dwelling and its contents along with barns, stables, other structures and farm personal property.
Service Line Coverage protects the underground pipes and wiring servicing your residence on the farm. Service lines can become damaged by a number of perils such as pressure system breakdown, freezing, collapse, decay, corrosion, tree root invasion, and more. This exclusive coverage provides protection from an unexpected loss caused by any number of the service line failure examples just listed, up to the amount of $10,000 with a low $500 deductible.
Designed specifically for residents in low-to-moderate risk areas, our Inland Flood Coverage endorsement can add affordable flood coverage to existing Home or Farmowner policies. This insurance covers the most common exposures residents face from an inland flood, including personal property, basement exposures, and appliances.
While Farmowners Equipment Breakdown is an automatic coverage add-on in our Farm Program, Service Line and Inland Flood Coverage are elective endorsements. Be sure to ask your CNI Agent for more information about these coverages to determine if you'd like to add them to your Farm policy.
Livestock – Additional Endorsements
Coverage for livestock can be extended to include loss resulting from death caused by accidental shooting, drowning, attack by dogs or wild animals, and collapse of a building.
Suffocation of Livestock - Coverage for livestock can be extended to include loss resulting from death caused by suffocation in confinement operations. The suffocation must result from the breakdown of or the interruption of power to equipment that controls the temperature, atmosphere, or movement of air within a building that confines the covered livestock.
Winter Livestock Perils - CNI provides special coverage for livestock, including our Winter Livestock Perils endorsement. This endorsement covers your cattle, sheep, swine, goats, horses, mules, and donkeys if they are affected by common threats like freezing or smothering in a snow or ice storm or falling through ice at your farm's pond during the winter.
Types of Machinery
Additional Endorsements available for the farm policies:
Buildings & Other Structures
New Home Discount
Our Farmstead Exclusive and Farmstead policies provide a New Home Credit to newer farm homes in generous amounts ranging from 3%-20%. Cha-ching, cha-ching!
Grain, Hay, & Other Farm Supplies/Products Coverage
As you could probably guess, grain, hay, and other farm supplies and products (stored in buildings or in the open) are covered under this portion of your farm policy. Hay, straw, and fodder in one area is considered one stack if separated by a clear space of 100 feet or more from any other hay, straw, or fodder in the open. If no specific “limit” is shown on the declaration page of your policy for any one stack, the maximum coverage per stack of hay, straw, or fodder in the open is $40,000.
Legacy Discount: Does farming run in your family? If so, you can save money on your CNI Farm Policy. Thank you for keeping your family farm alive and well for the next generation.
Education Or Public Safety Discount: Your commitment in the classroom and as a public servant - whether active or retired - doesn't go unnoticed. Save money on your CNI policy as a token of our gratitude for your dedication. This discount can be applied to any policyholder who is currently working as [or is] a retired teacher, policeman, fireman, paramedic, first responder, nurse, and/or EMT.
If any of our farm policies appear to be a great fit for your Oklahoma operation, reach out to one of our local agents. Just click the picture above and find an agent closest to you!
Here's a little background on Robin and why you should trust your farm is in good hands when pros like her organize your coverages.
Robin started her insurance career in 2012 at an independent agency and small farm mutual insurance company in northern Missouri. Shortly after, she earned her P&C producers license and began selling personal lines insurance, on top of processing policy endorsements, payments, and renewals.
Several years later, Robin shifted careers and began working for CNI as a Marketing Underwriter, primarily training agents on company products and systems. Today, she leads our Farm Underwriting Division at CNI and works in the trenches each day to ensure our farm policy offerings meet the needs of the diverse customers we serve.