Insurance

[UPRAISER]

I got a wake up call today. I was doing my good deed at the local church by plowing the snow off the parking lot. I have a Kubota B21 with loader and back hoe. The parking lot was empty and I had about 50% of it cleared when a church member stopped his car in the cleared area, waved hello. I backup like had been doing, only this time something got in the way. It seems he parked his car in my work area. The back hoe laid on a few dents and a bit of orange paint.

I caught up with him and told him about it. I presume my insurance would cover it. NOT. It seems that the coverage for my tractor stopped at the property line. If I had a snow blower or lawn mower it was covered.

It seems that the insurance companies never ever thought about those of us doing good deeds for our neighbors, or our community. In fact my agent who I have known for nearly 30 years is at a loss to find it, he is still looling. He also found out that lots of his clients who have hobby farms and tractors are not covered off the home place. It apparently is causing somewhat of a stir in the insurance community, they just never thought about it.

I would like to know if any of you folks have insurance for such a condition and who writes it? I live in Oregon and due to the strong contractor laws, the only coverage is when you are a licensed contractor, then it is the law. I am not a contractor and have no desire to be one.

I contacted the church and they are going to get it covered by their insurance, which is written it seems by my agent. He suggested I call them.

The church was not aware that I did it and have done it in the past and that was the way I wanted it.

Live and learn, but a $1700 repair bill sure messed up the good feeling I get when I do a good deed.

Curt

 

[ray66v]

Sorry about your luck. My agent told me when I bought my TLB that it would not be covered in any way the second it left my property. I asked about extending the coverage further, and they will not take it unless they can write a nice big commercial policy. Makes sense these are high theft items, and if you put a hoe in the ground there is all kinds of things to dig up that could be costly, (phone lines, power lines, gas lines, water lines).
Your next problem is that the church's insurance carrier may pay for the damages but, then go after you for the money. Its hard to say for that kind of money, (chicken feed to them) if they will subrigate or not. My guess is they will. Good luck.

 

[powerstroke444e]

As an insurance agent I find many people don't have their CUT's covered correctly. With most companies unless you schedule the machine it will not be covered for overturn and will not provide replacement cost coverage. You can add off premise liablity for small amount & incidental business pursuits for landscaping if you only do it part time & make little or no money.
One thing to note, most churches or large business policies take $1,000 to $10,000 deductable, just depends on the size of the business.

 

[CurlyDave]

I live in Oregon and due to the strong contractor laws, the only coverage is when you are a licensed contractor, then it is the law. I am not a contractor and have no desire to be one.

It may be time to think about changing insurance companies.

I live in Oregon also, and my agent (State Farm) assures me that my homeowner's policy covers me for damage I do with my tractor while it is not on my property.

It does not cover damage to my tractor off the property.

I challenged him on this not more than 2 months ago, and he assured me that if I was helping a neighbor, hit a gas line with the backhoe and burned down his house, I would be covered under the liability provisions.

Might be different for vehicles, but would the car owner's comprehensive policy be the place to look for coverage here?

 

[AKfish]

Hmmm... this thread has me thinking that I better get my agent on the phone; pronto. I've kinda had it in the back of my mind but haven't have enough motivation to get over to the phone.

This question has been itching at me for a couple of weeks --- ever since I was plowing a couple of my neighbor's out and the level indicator on my FEL "grabbed" a low hanging power cable (romex) that the neighbor had strung overhead to a utility shed.

I had the bucket fully extended (it's at night, and real dark) in the air and began to back up at the same time I hit the detent on the loader. Pulled the cable loose and bent the bejesus out of the level indicator. Crap!

No major damage, though. And was easily fixed. (I'm gonna replace the level rod with an aluminum one.)

Got me to thinkin', though. And this thread is even alot more incentive to pick up the phone.

AKfish

 

[Travelover]

Does any one know if an umbrella policy would cover an instance like this?

 

[LBrown59]

Lots of post in many a thread warning about this very thing.
How did you miss Em all?
==

. I presumed my insurance would cover it. NOT. It seems that the coverage for my tractor stopped at the property line.

*It seems that the insurance companies never ever thought about those of us doing good deeds for our neighbors, or our community. In fact my agent who I have known for nearly 30 years is at a loss to find it, he is still looling. He also found out that lots of his clients who have hobby farms and tractors are not covered off the home place. It apparently is causing somewhat of a stir in the insurance community, they just never thought about it.

*Oh, I would say they are well aware of it.
I think a better explanation would be is they don't bother to explain it all to consumers.
== L B ==

 

[ray66v]

Curly, comprehensive is basically; fire, theft & vandalism, (no coverage for this). There would be coverage for the auto owner under his collision, (assuming he has it). But, there will again be the subrogation issue, (Kubota operator is liable for the damage there is no way around that). Insurance companies hire these nice young aggressive lawyers right out of school and these are the kind of cases they give them to get started. It may be a while but, I have seen this work. It will Boil down to how much money they end up actually laying out, (deductible would come off the top), as to weather they will bother.

 

[tallyho8]

Does any one know if an umbrella policy would cover an instance like this?

In my area, you have to have a $300,000 policy on everything and if your regular policy maxes out by paying off the total $300,000, then your umbrella policy kicks in and pays the rest of the damage up to their limit.

 

[Travelover]

In my area, you have to have a $300,000 policy on everything and if your regular policy maxes out by paying off the total $300,000, then your umbrella policy kicks in and pays the rest of the damage up to their limit.

So if your basic homeowners insurance doesn't pay, umbrella insurance doesn't either?