The importance of farm liability cover

Protecting your farming activities from financial risk is what a farming insurance policy is all about.

Whether that means covering your structures from fire, weather damage or theft, or your equipment and stock from the same, risk management is critical in being prepared for the costs of loss causing events.

The nature of those events can vary widely, and Greg Dyde from Elders Insurance Wagga Wagga knows all about them.

As well as dealing with commercial and personal insurance clients, Mr Dyde works with a wide variety of rural producers.

"Our immediate surrounds here in Wagga is mixed farming, then if you go west it becomes more broadacre farming - cropping - then back east we get into cattle grazing."

Working out of the Elders Rural Services building in Wagga Wagga, Mr Dyde says that everyone is keen to protect themselves.

That means a comprehensive insurance policy that includes property as well as liability cover.

The latter is important for a number of reasons, some of which the Wagga Wagga insurance specialist points out.

"Seventy-five per cent of our liability claims are from roaming stock - when cattle or sheep get onto roadways and motor vehicles collide with them - that's where most of our farm liability claims come from," says Mr Dyde.

A small breach in fencing is all it can take for stock to get out onto public roads and pose a risk to passing motorists.

Another common claim seen through the Wagga Wagga offices is overspraying.

"That's when a farmer is spraying their paddocks along the fence line and a bit of wind comes up and carries the spray mist into their neighbour's paddock," explains Mr Dyde.

If that spray happens to be a herbicide then it can kill whatever it lands on - leading to a liability claim.

This goes to show just how important it is to ensure your farming activities are protected by a complete insurance policy.