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Farmers urged to reevaluate insurance coverage
An agent says farmers should reevaluate their insurance because of rising repair and replacement costs.
Jeff White represents Rural Mutual Insurance in Menominee and Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He tells Brownfield a policy taken out a year or two ago might not meet the needs of the farm today. “Is my big dairy facility insured correctly? Do we have enough coverage limit on it should a catastrophe occur, because we’ve seen an increase in the cost of just the materials itself so with lumber and steel prices going up.”
White tells Brownfield one of his insured farmers is building a steel structure this summer that was bid over a year ago, and that same building at today’s prices would be 50% more expensive to construct. “The cost to replace buildings and things like that, and even parts. We’re finding that with the whole pandemic that went on, just getting parts and materials, building costs have increased, so that’s a concern.”
White says putting up a building is often the price of building materials times two, and he hopes prices and material availability come back to normal.
