IF YOU think your home and contents insurance premiums have gone through the roof spare a thought for farmers who are tackling an increase of anywhere between 20 and 40 percent depending on the insurer.
Coochin farmer Rob Bell grows lucerne, corn and soybeans.
He said his overall insurance had increased by 40 percent within the past six years.
“That’s a lot higher than the CPI and it is certainly high given the difficult years we’ve had,” he said.
“There are not a lot of insurance companies offering farm insurance anymore as they’ve been considered too high a risk.
“As far as I know there are only two or three companies that offer any sort of farm insurance, we use CGU.”
He said there were packages for what he calls ‘fair dinkum farmers’ but because he farmed less than 100 acres (40 hectares) he was considered a hobby farmer.
“This means we fall into a different bracket and they charge us an arm and a leg for insurances,” he said.
Farmers for Climate Action blame the rise on the increasing cost of climate change inaction.
Farm insurance company Ausure warn that an El Nino weather pattern meant it was ‘crucial Australians were proactively prepared’ for the challenges it posed.
To Mr Bell this means forking out more money for insurances to cover events that may never happen.
“I haven’t insured a crop for probably 30 years, I would think,” Mr Bell said.
“Simply for the fact it’s worth probably 40 percent of what the crop’s worth.
“Insurances being insurances have 1,500 sub clauses as to why they won’t pay, it was just unviable.”                                                                                                         He said as it was, his insurance went up by another $1,000 or $1,500 every year.
“You can’t afford to insure for everything, it is at a stage where money is tight and you think well do I put my faith in the public system or not, but unfortunately farmers just have to wear it or pay ridiculous amounts of money,” he said.
The National Insurance Brokers Association reports 87 percent of policyholders had seen insurance premiums rise and two in five people reported property impacted by extreme weather events in the last five years.
Choice CEO Alan Kirkland surmised the situation saying, “Our research found that the insurance market is failing to cover these events fairly and affordably.”
“Many people are being forced to pay higher premiums, reduce their cover or abandon insurance entirely,” he said.
This scenario is one farmers like Mr Bell are all too familiar with.
“I’ve got my insurance trimmed back to a bare minimum, I don’t have fences covered, I’ve taken the electric motors off, so basically it’s just the tractors and the main shed and a bit of stock inside the shed that’s covered,” Mr Bell said.
“Then there is the public indemnity, something like $25 million you have to insure in the event somebody trespasses on your property and hurts themselves.
“Insurance is a wonderful thing to have but from our perspective it’s become a luxury item and we’ll just have to take our chances.”