home owners insurance

[efdgoon]

I'v done some real improvments on the farm. A brand new building, livestock,general improvments. I would like to find an insurance co. that better fits the homesteaders interest. Is anyone happy with theirs?
Jeff

[edcopp]

Originally Posted by efdgoon

I'v done some real improvments on the farm. A brand new building, livestock,general improvments. I would like to find an insurance co. that better fits the homesteaders interest. Is anyone happy with theirs?
Jeff

Sure I am happy with mine.

Now if you want some information that will help you it would be helpful to know where you are. Insurance will vary quite a bit from state to state. When I was shopping for coverage it helped me a lot to talk with some neighbors who had similar types of property. I asked them who they got coverage from, and talked with several agents before I bought coverage.

[Charleen]

If you contact your state's Farm Bureau they should be able to direct you to an insurance provider that will specifically cater to farms & homesteaders.

www.fb.org

There should be a link to your state's FB from there.

[foxtrapper]

Insurance almost prevented us from being able to buy our place. Having a metal roof flipped out most of them as with a wood stove they were terrified of fire damage and insisted we had to have wood. You read that right btw.

Allstate was who was willing to insure us. Never filed a claim so I can't say how that would go. Rates aren't bad, as far as HOI goes around here.

[SquashNut]

Ours would not give us fire insurance till we put on a new roof. They were happy with the tin. They do require stone under my wood furnace though.

[MillsFarmFamily]

We live in Florida, and when we called Farm bureau they said they didn't have anyone that could insure us because we had horses!!! My DH said, "this is FARM bureau isn't it?". The lady got snippy and said that the only co. that they had that would insure us wasn't writing any new policies until the spring. Other insurance co.s freaked out about the tractor, over 5 acres, horses, other grazing animals, they never even made it to the part about us owning a bulldog Insurance is a really big rip off. Hurricanes hurt us all in Florida, even if the rain and winds didn't touch us.

[MaKettle]

State Farm and USAA are both good, and don't seem to mind if one has out buildings, animals, etc. Both are good when it comes to compensation.

[ThreeJane]

Originally Posted by foxtrapper

Insurance almost prevented us from being able to buy our place. Having a metal roof flipped out most of them as with a wood stove they were terrified of fire damage and insisted we had to have wood. You read that right btw.

Allstate was who was willing to insure us. Never filed a claim so I can't say how that would go. Rates aren't bad, as far as HOI goes around here.

Okay, I'll bite, being stupid and hungry at the moment.

YOu have a woodstove, and a metal roof, and they wanted you to have a WOOD roof INSTEAD of metal?

Did I miss something here? I could see, maybe them insisting on a composite roof, but wood roof? Hah?

[ET1 SS]

We have insurance for each of our apartment buildings. A different policy with a different company in each state.

But now that we own bare land, and are in the process of building a farmhouse, it is a different issue.

We have been told that many of our neighbors had to shift to using outdoor fireboxes, as their insurance companys will not let them have a fireplace inside thier home. Many of these units are available and a lot of the hardware stores around here even have rows lined up in their parking lots. they jsut drop it off the back of a pickup truck and run two rubber garden hoses connecting the unit back to the house and baseboards.

I just dont want to be trudging through the snow to stoke a fire twice a day.

I am not real convinced that I 'need' home insurance though.

We bought the land free and clear, we bought a building free and clear, and we are doing it ourselves. So we have no leins against it.

[Bresias]

We have been unable to go through the major insurers (Farmer's, AAA, etc) because we have woodstove only heating.

We got advice from a neighbor who circumvented this; he installed an electric wall heater, a plug in type, ran the cord into the drywall and had it come out in an inconspicuous place near a socket. He plugged it in for the home inspection, and then unplugged it for all time.

Now if his house burned down because of his unsupervised woodstove while he went to the post office . . .

[Gary in ohio]

You may find that you will not cost effectivly be able to insure the animals but the buildings are just that, buildings regardless of its use. Just understand your policy, as people have noted many wanted features for homsteads are abnormal and insurance co's want normalcy.

[Christiaan]

We have Pemco, no problems getting coverage from them. Never had to file a claim (knock wood) so don't know how they are when push comes to shove.