We are in the middle of another unique growing season. The switch from drought to flood has been flipped in many areas and the cost of seeding a crop is at record levels. You could sit on your deck and calculate these expenses, but you’d be donating blood to the local mosquito population if you sit outside. Even though there is lots of diversity this year for farm start up, there is still hope that this year will work out great.
Along with the added costs of planting a crop this year, there is the potential for high revenue from crops if they can be harvested and sold. The old adage of buying $100 or $200 per acre to cover your expenses is no longer sufficient to cover the expenses of planting the crop, so you may want to consider purchasing private hail insurance.
At Rempel Insurance, we continue to offer private hail insurance for growers across Manitoba through our Dale’s Hail division. This allows us to offer multiple companies, high limits of coverage and solutions to match your hail insurance needs.
While we could run through multiple options, rates, and strategies for insuring your crop, the three main strategies used by farmers to protect their crop are:
Option 1: Full coverage through private hail companies represented by Dale’s Hail. If you buy early while all of the hail companies still have township limits available in your area, you will get access to the best rating available. Most farms are purchasing $300-$400 per acre as a starting point for most cereal crops and buying higher amounts for the higher-valued crops, depending on the potential revenue generated by those crops.
Option 2: Use deductibles to your advantage. This allows you to save premium, share a small portion of the risk with the insurance company, but set up your coverage to respond in the event of a large loss. Deductibles can save you substantial premium dollars and some insurers offer a disappearing deductible structure in the event of a substantial claim, which means you get the benefit of the premium savings and also the catastrophic coverage in that scenario.
Option 3: Combining coverage through the government crop insurance program with excess layers of coverage through private hail insurers, to provide adequate coverage limits. Some farms automatically include hail insurance as part of their annual crop insurance purchases through the government program. We see many farms buying excess layers of coverage in addition to the MASC base coverage layer; allowing for higher limits and the competitive benefits of the private insurance market, along with the ease and familiarity of the government program.
We are glad to walk through your options and strategies to find the hail insurance coverage to fit your needs. At Rempel Insurance, we are proud to represent private hail insurance companies across Manitoba and provide options for your farm. Contact us today!
David Schmidt is an Account Executive at Rempel Insurance Brokers in Morris, MB, specializing in insuring farms and businesses across Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Call or text (204) 746-2320 Email davids@rempelinsurance.com Web www.rempelinsurance.com