Does Anybody Go Without Homeowners/Property Insurance?

[Stimw]

I am having a terrible time finding insurance for my 4 bedroom home on 10 acres.
I am letting a friend keep his 3 horses in my pasture and he is maintaining the pasture and fence. He feeds them daily and I provide water.
Insurance companies say I am running a horse boarding business!
Horse owner has a million dollar rider on him homeowners policy for the horses.
I bought the property 2 years ago and they want to know how old is the roof. ???
It is in decent condition but no permit was pulled on it. My best guess is 10 years old.
If I had to rate the home on a 1-10 I would give it an 8 based on repairs/upgrades I have completed.

 

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I am having a terrible time finding insurance for my 4 bedroom home on 10 acres.
I am letting a friend keep his 3 horses in my pasture and he is maintaining the pasture and fence. He feeds them daily and I provide water.
Insurance companies say I am running a horse boarding business!
Horse owner has a million dollar rider on him homeowners policy for the horses.
I bought the property 2 years ago and they want to know how old is the roof. ???
It is in decent condition but no permit was pulled on it. My best guess is 10 years old.
If I had to rate the home on a 1-10 I would give it an 8 based on repairs/upgrades I have completed.

In this country I think you'd be crazy not having liability insurance at a minimum. No matter how good a friend is now, if he gets injured on your property, you could easily find yourself at the other end of a lawsuit - it's not necessarily your friend suing you, it could be his insurance (you don't really think they want to cough up their own money?). You need your own piranhas on your side, unfortunately.

 

[JRobyn]

1) Don't go without.
2) I find that Farm Bureau is the most "understanding" about things rural.
3) Tell the insurance appraiser you have NO livestock. That's the truth. They're your buddy's and separately insured. If the appraiser insists on seeing the property, you may have to temporarily move the horses.
4) If your best estimate is that the roof is 10 years old, tell them that with conviction and don't look back.
5) Once you DO have insurance with someone, immediately start looking for competing quotes. Insurance companies HATE to insure someone without current coverage, but LOVE to beat out a competitor's price.

 

[rekees4300]

I am having a terrible time finding insurance for my 4 bedroom home on 10 acres.

Call Amica, Consumer Reports rates them #1 for Homeowners insurance.

Amica Mutual Insurance Company

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

I have Allstate, I have my house covered for fire and everything but flooding, I had them bump my exterior dwellings (barns) up to 160k coverage, was $20 a year more and they didn't care I had livestock, I said I might get two horses or cattle and they plugged that in and said it wouldn't raise my insurance up any.

If you tell the insurance company you have horses, say there for personal use, that's what I did and I got that result, they said they didn't care.

My bank cares though, I have to conceal my animals from them because they don't loan money for farms or anything like that, my banker strait up told me this when I was buying the house and said that the bank doesn't want to know anything about animals or they would deny my loan.

I have to have insurance being I am paying a mortgage, I will be keeping it after the house is paid off.

The questions I was asked is how old the roof is, how many trees are near or hanging over the house, how many bathrooms, what the siding is made of (how old is the siding ext.). All blanket questions so they can plug into there computer and pop out a quoit. They sent out risk assessment team to look at the house and take pics of the exterior, they didn't care about the barns or anything else really, just the house.

I had no probs finding insurance companies to insure my house and barns with saying I had animals. My plans was going to be board 2 horses, being yours are already insured, I would either say you didn't have them or say you might get a few in the future. If they get out and they hurt someone, the liability wouldn't fall on you like it would me so you case is different.

I have 3 cattle on 3 acres, 1.5acres are fenced in for the cattle.

My homeowners insurance covers my tractor also from theft and fire on my property, when you get insured, be sure to take lots of pics of everything of value on the property, if it's yours or not.

 

[M5farms]

If you have acreage Farm Bureau is hard to beat , I have my home, farm property, animals ,tractors, equipment insured with them its about 1600 a year

 

[Birdhunter1]

I'm with State Farm on everything. Three vehicles, house, shop, barn and a horse.
The horse for now is one, I'm covered up to three for personal use standard but my agent has told me if everyone in the house had one (four people in my house) they would still see it as personal use as it would be one per person.

 

[jeff9366]

I doubt your neighbor has insurance coverage away from his property.

Homeowner's insurance is normally limited to the property's boundaries, that is the boundaries of your neighbor's property.

If Homeowner's insurance was not property limited some would do risky commercial work then file claims on non-commercial Homeowner's policies for big $$$. Commercial insurance is much more expensive than Homeowner's insurance because risks are unknown to both operator and insurance provider.

 

[TheMan419]

We have horses at home and my wife trains them. Right now we have just our horses at home but wife goes off property to give lessons as well as give lessons on our horses at our property.

Nationwide Farm policy. When we added the horses our insurance went up a whopping $450 a year. That is for a million dollar liability policy. Plus we have another million dollar umbrella policy. So if someone is hurt we have $2m of insurance. That means the insurance company will hire some big *** law firm to defend me and the wife from whatever is going on.

That said I used a local insurance agent. He is a multi line guy and not tied to any one company. So he shopped around to find me a good policy. It was not the cheapest, but it was better coverage than a cheaper policy.

Even if you have a friends horse on the property you want your insurance company to know. So if someone gets hurt you are covered.

Also Indiana has a good law that as long as you have a specific warning sign posted about the dangers of horses your liability is DRASTICALLY reduced. I sill have the insurance though.

Even if your liability is zero, if someone sues you still need to hire a lawyer to defend you.

I say all this and I am a lawyer. I would never defend myself in court.

 

[ultrarunner]

Insurance can be a deal breaker here in California... for most the killer is being too far from a municipal fire hydrant...

Friends have had to go with Loyd's of London for fire coverage.

Now my brother's place is county but 20' feet away is a city hydrant so all should be good...

Twice the property was inspected to check if he was boarding horses... that would have been a deal killer.

Currently they have 4 plus one pet sheep and two Australian shepherds... with various 4H projects coming and going.

The tree farm turned out not to be a big deal...