TRACTOR Insurance

[kthompson]

Chris, it nothing has changed in SC since I last did this: Homeowner may cover for such as theft but not for damage you do to it while using it.
Can buy stand alone commercial policy but it is costly.
If you want full coverage meaning if you damage it while using it Farm Bureau was best choice. Doubt they will insure tractor only buy might.
However if you are able to buy from Kubota or JD insurance on your tractor and maybe other brands or dealers have options also are the best option for the coverage and price. I have JD with coverage they sell and it has been good and saying that with two damages to machine.
Just be sure you understand the coverage FULLY what ever you go with. Ask questions heavy..many agents will have no idea how their HO plan really covers your tractor for as they will write this type of coverage very seldom.

You can find this topic discussed over and over here.

 

[RNeumann]

I’m having a hard time understanding this. Are you saying that one runs their tractor into the side of their house the homeowners insurance won’t cover that? That doesn’t sound right......am I missing something?

 

[Rock Crawler]

For craps and grins, call KTAC and see if they will write you. I was talking to a KTAC insurance guy last fall who told me that he could write a policy for any tractor, not just Kubota.... but maybe he was smoking crack? I would call and ask though. Peer check me.

 

[daugen]

There are two insurance issues, liability and damage to tractor. Your current homeowner covers quite a bit. Unless you damage your own equipment, you are well covered if the tractor stays on your property. In some cases, like mine, I'm allowed to drive my tractor on public roads so I can get to the far side of my property with different road frontage. Considered maintenance of home property.

You may not charge a penny for work done with your tractor or your homeowners coverage simply vanishes. If you insure your tractor separately on a personal articles/inland marine/floater style all risk policy, you usually can use the tractor for any purpose, including hauling it off site.

If you are using your tractor for farming, you need a Farmowners Policy usually, which provides a broad range of coverages specially tailored to farmers, sensibly. Otherwise if just for personal use, and you stay on your property, your homeowners is adequate for most folks. You can have 50K contents coverage and if you destroy a 40k tractor, they will write a check, there is no limit per piece of equipment for anything used to maintain the home premises. A big corn combine might be a stretch...

Look at the bottom of this page and see the links to other threads on this topic. Has been well covered, something that concerns most of us.
This insurance has not changed in a long time. I am a retired insurance underwriter, btw.

Hard to go wrong with Farm Bureau, but this coverage is pretty standard and usually easily available.

 

[daugen]

One more thought, tractor insurance is not maintenance coverage, if you blow a FEL cylinder, no coverage. Mechanical breakdowns usually not covered. Blow a fuel line and catch your tractor on fire? Covered peril of fire, yup.

The big print giveth and the fine print taketh away. Super important to understand what is NOT covered, and make your agent be very clear about that.

 

[Beltzington]

Hi daugen -

I would appreciate your expertise on this subject. Let's say I need to cover 100K of machinery not located on my primary residence and not used for commercial purposes. What type of insurance should I be looking for. My current inland covers my tractor and attachments but everything needs to be listed by serial number on the contract and as mentioned earlier it has doubled in price. Right now I have a 6k wood chipper located at the same location as my tractor that would be a complete loss if stolen or destroyed. I checked with the Farm Bureau and they wont insure it since I am not living on the property or have an agricultural basis. Pretty standard and easily available fro someone who understands the system but a vacuum for most of us. When I ask this same question of my current policy the word "should" came up more than I am comfortable with. TIA

 

[kthompson]

I’m having a hard time understanding this. Are you saying that one runs their tractor into the side of their house the homeowners insurance won’t cover that? That doesn’t sound right......am I missing something?

Lets try to figure this out: if you drove your car into the side of your house which insurance will cover that? Auto, correct? The driving into the house caused the loss, right? What if you did not have insurance on your car of any kind, but had home owner's insurance on the house. Think your homeowners will cover the house just as if you were to burn you house by trash fire that gets away from you.

Do not understand what you are wanting the HO policy to cover there and if you are saying the tractor is covered by the HO policy? That will depend on how the coverage is written on the tractor. Do not assume all companies will cover a tractor the same. Some will not insure one period while others may have great coverage...you really have to check them out. How about you answer this for me, you have your tractor insured on your HO policy and you run into someone else house or your cutter throws a blade through the window of car driving by killing the driver, are you covered?

I only chimed in here for the OP is in my state, too much in this type of coverage especially in HO insurance varies a good bit from state to state as my experience a lot of such add on coverage on HO varies state to state. With that one fact you need to check out the coverage in YOUR state. Even if the laws did not vary the fact the insurance companies vary from state to state so what is best option in one state may not be an option in your state. I believe you will find the insurance offered by JD or Kubota will vary very little if any from one state to another but even with a HO company often their options they have will vary from state to state due to the different state laws.

 

[daugen]

Hi daugen -

I would appreciate your expertise on this subject. Let's say I need to cover 100K of machinery not located on my primary residence and not used for commercial purposes. What type of insurance should I be looking for. My current inland covers my tractor and attachments but everything needs to be listed by serial number on the contract and as mentioned earlier it has doubled in price. Right now I have a 6k wood chipper located at the same location as my tractor that would be a complete loss if stolen or destroyed. I checked with the Farm Bureau and they wont insure it since I am not living on the property or have an agricultural basis. Pretty standard and easily available fro someone who understands the system but a vacuum for most of us. When I ask this same question of my current policy the word "should" came up more than I am comfortable with. TIA

If I owned a valuable, very stealable wood chipper located somewhere I could not keep an eye on it, you bet I'd list it on my inland marine policy. And if it's located at a second premises where you don't have a second home or a secondary homeowners policy written, yup, no coverage under your primary policy. If you tow any of this equipment on the road, or live in an area where you worry about theft, sorry but you need to get your pencil and paper out and start writing down serial numbers.

A Farmowners policy, btw, offers some blanket coverage for "odds and ends" but you are paying for that as the policy itself is not cheap, no free lunch... Otherwise unscheduled contents at a non primary location is going to be hard to insure except as you have done. Lots of this equipment sits in baby barns or utility sheds, not hard to steal from in the middle of the night in a rural area.
Kthompson is absolutely right that you have to be careful with state exceptions. My experience is that impacts more on regional issues like mold, windstorm, etc.

one of those nasty little takebacks in policies pops up when you damage your own insured property while running your own equipment.
In commercial insurance, there are exclusions for workmanship, basically poor quality work but no exclusions for stupidity or bad luck.
Insurance pays for Covered Perils basically, All Risk adds more but also adds dozens of exclusions. Be sure to ask your insurance agent if you are covered no matter how you interpret your policy.
You can hold your agent to what he tells you, one of the reasons to have an agent in the first place...I was one for over 20 years.
If your agent tells you, and I always like things in email or writing..., and it turns out it's not, no so sorry's. It's called professional liability, and if the agent screws up in his/her understanding of contract law, and gives you bad advice, the final pocket is theirs. Fact of life being an insurance agent. Guessing is never good in this business.

Homeowners policies, particularly by the more expensive companies like Chubb, can sometimes have little optional coverage riders, included, like free sunroofs on a new car. It's possible that extra package the companies add to differentiate themselves or gain a competitive advantage may play to your benefit, but it's unlikely.

 

[RNeumann]

Lets try to figure this out: if you drove your car into the side of your house which insurance will cover that? Auto, correct? The driving into the house caused the loss, right? What if you did not have insurance on your car of any kind, but had home owner's insurance on the house. Think your homeowners will cover the house just as if you were to burn you house by trash fire that gets away from you.

Do not understand what you are wanting the HO policy to cover there and if you are saying the tractor is covered by the HO policy? That will depend on how the coverage is written on the tractor. Do not assume all companies will cover a tractor the same. Some will not insure one period while others may have great coverage...you really have to check them out. How about you answer this for me, you have your tractor insured on your HO policy and you run into someone else house or your cutter throws a blade through the window of car driving by killing the driver, are you covered?

I only chimed in here for the OP is in my state, too much in this type of coverage especially in HO insurance varies a good bit from state to state as my experience a lot of such add on coverage on HO varies state to state. With that one fact you need to check out the coverage in YOUR state. Even if the laws did not vary the fact the insurance companies vary from state to state so what is best option in one state may not be an option in your state. I believe you will find the insurance offered by JD or Kubota will vary very little if any from one state to another but even with a HO company often their options they have will vary from state to state due to the different state laws.

Post #3 covers any damage that isn’t on your property. I was unable to find a policy that covered my machine or my liability off property. I would need a different policy for that.
All the homeowners policies I saw covered the machine on property. Both damage to the machine and property.
I’m just not buying that one can accidentally damage their house in about any way imaginable but if they do it with the tractor it isn’t covered.
Sounds like OP is shopping insurance for a new purchase and the loan requires it. If that’s the case starting with the homeowner’s policy is what most would do- this would cover both the machine and property. Covering the machine satisfies the lender.

I use USAA but also shopped Allstate and a local broker- all had the same answer. The Farm Bureau (post #3) was the only non commercial policy I found that would cover the machine and provide some liability off property.
All the others provided zero coverage off property and the umbrella did the same. That was scary to me as it would be nice to run to the neighbor’s house and plow their drive or something. Doing so would leave me uninsured.....all homeowners I researched were this way (see post #3).

 

[Redlands Okie]

Also keep in mind items like running over a gas meter or phone junction box on the side of the road while mowing. Interactions with traffic while mowing near the side of the road from flying debris. Hitting a utility line or equipment on your own property. I have seen one case of a buried phone line cut by a brush hog while mowing. Starting a grass fire that burns onto someone else property and buildings and equipment. A few hundred thousand dollars can be used up real quick if a grass fire gets into a few structures and or vehicles.
Equipment that never leaves your property can still hold you liable for a lot of money.