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?

 

[UPRAISER]

I appreciate the feed back. No, I did not think about doing a search, but then again if I had, it should have been prior to the problem.

I do carry a large liability policy as I am in a professional service type business and it would cover a really big problem. It is $1000 deductable and I did not want to file such a small claim. I hope I don't have to file a big one either.

I will have my agent check out the State Farm coverage, but my experience with them has been poor. I was surprised the my home owners policy did not cover this type of thing and so was he. It seems you can mow the neighbors yard, use your snow blower to clear it but you cannot use your tractor to smooth out his driveway, or move his big pile of horse manuer and be covered. I suspect that it will be covered very soon as a rider since it turned on the lights for a lot of firms with his inquiry (his words) and they like to write more insurance.

In the mean time, the guy I bumped did some digging and got a repair bid from another shop for less than half.

The church was more than willing to submit the claim, I will pay any deductable. They liked having the parking lot cleared of snow.

Have a great day.

Curt

 

[LBrown59]

Many times that sort of thing isn't covered by a homeowners policy.
If you want such coverage you have to add a rider for it if your company will do that.
Some insurers will / some won't.
I had a guy who wanted me to install a culvert for him a couple of summers ago but I had to turn him down because my insurance don't cover me or the tractor when off my primacies
== L B ==

I was surprised that my home owners policy did not cover this type of thing and so was he.

Curt

 

[LBrown59]

( my agent 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.)

This seems like an odd way of doing things.
They will cover liability which can cost them a lot more in claims
than damage or loss of a tractor but they won't cover the smaller less costly claims on a tractor.
== L B ==

 

[mnbowhunter1960]

I was told by my agent (Farmers Insurance Co) here in MN that I did need a separate policy for my use of the tractor when not on my personal property that I reside on, I also like to help the neighbors out when I can snow plowing and I also trailer it a few times a year to my property in northern Mn. I have very minimal policy for that property considering it's just a hunting shack and woods. I did purchase a separate policy I think close to $200.00 a year hoping I never need to use it. MH

 

[tallyho8]

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

Right

 

[Red55]

Curt-
I used to plow "our" private road but stopped after a friend in the insurance business told me that my millon dollar umbrella policy would not cover me for liability. What I'm already paying-nope seperate (and expensive) policy.

I would be more concerned about a little old lady slipping and falling. With today's insurance co the big thing is to paid the claim and then recover it from another party! For instance this nice old lady doesn't sue you cause she's a nice old lady but her medical insurance co after laying out 50-100 grand for that new hip decides to recover from YOU. Even if you win which is doubtful you'll be out tens of thousands for legal defense. Get an insurance policy BTW I'm not a lawyer nor am I dispensing anything that looks or appears to be legal advice Just a layman trying to keep my shirt on my back . . . -Ed

 

[powerstroke444e]

Your insurance is only as good as your agent.
Remember just because it is insured don't mean it is covered for everything(IE roll over & off premise liablity).

 

[UPRAISER]

Ed

Good advice. If I can get a rider for $200 I will. I like to help others out with my equipment. I was an owner operator of heavy equipment for several years and I consider myself a good operator. I was blessed by a very dear mother in law that put up most of the $ for the new B21 or anything else I wanted in that line. She is now 91 and likes to hear how I help others with it. She says its part of the pay back to her gift.

I guess I will add a rear view mirror so I can see whats behind me with my stiff neck.

I am also going to make sure I have a helper the next time I do the church parking lot. If there is one idiot I expect there are more!

I appreciate all the feed back.

Curt

 

[gemini5362]

I would think that maybe the person driving the car would help pay for some of the damage since it appears that they stopped behind a moving vehicle in a snow covered parking lot.

I also have a policy with farmers insurance. The tractor insurance policy is the only policy I have with them. After reading some of the threads on here about this problem. I asked the Farmers Agent if my tractor was insured when it was off of my property and I was doing work with it. I was assured that it would.

Umbrella policy's do exactly what was posted in here earlier. I had to have at least a 350,000 dollar liability policy. The umbrella policy pays the difference between the face value of the policy and the regular liability policy. In my case the umbrella is for 1,000,000 so they would pay up to 650,000 of any claim above 350,000. The nice thing about an umbrella policy is one policy covers all. It covers all of my cars and all of my houses. It is also fairly reasonable. I believe it covers my house I live in and one car for the original premium. Each additional car is something like 40.00 per year and I believe each house is something like 12.00 a year. For the 4 cars I have on it and the 7 houses it is something like 375.00 a year.

 

[Red55]

Curt
-thanks for listening NOTHING burns me more than seeing someone doing the right thing getting screwed for it. I agreed about the guy who parked the car there in sharing responsiblity.

Also thought that the church should have a special collection to pay for your share of the damages and/or for your rider. Also I would consider getting one of those backup alarms I know that I couldn't lived with myself if I hurt someone backing up. Good luck -Ed