(homeowners insurance isn’t going to pay $40,000 for your tractor without you paying premium).
actually it will, though it sounds odd. If you have a 100k dwelling limit, you have 50k in contents, or usually 70k if you buy replacement cost coverage on contents. Every dime of that coverage would pay for your 50k tractor if your barn burned down with the tractor in it, as long as you didn't get involved in policy exclusions, like business use.
There is usually no limitation on a standard HO policy for valuation of equipment used to maintain the premises, i.e. a tractor.
Unless you have replacement cost coverage on contents, which is usually readily available on HO contents coverage, your biggest exposure on an older tractor is depreciation.
Homeowners policies are very restrictive as to damaging equipment you are using however. That's where, like Seabee says, you can have a huge uncovered claim on your homeowners in the wrong circumstances. If I went logging in the woods with a newer tractor, I sure would have the best coverage I could get. In fact if I thought I could roll my tractor at all (I live on pool table flat land) I would absolutely buy additional all risk coverage for it, be it KTAC, PAF (personal articles floater) or a commercial inland marine policy if business use is included at all.
Just remember, if you accept money for services or trade in kind, you aren't covered under your homeowners at all. The only business use usually allowed under a homeowners policy is an office in your home. Beyond that, if you farm, you need a Farmowners policy. Commercial operators are used to listing their equipment. They have to annually value it for financials, loans, etc.
Like many of us, had a long talk with my insurance agent and got him to put in writing that my tractor, and I, are fully covered per HO coverage, if I drive my tractor on the public roads while going "around the block" to the rear of my property, as I can't cut through the middle, pond and swamp. I was very worried being out on public roads and they came back and said if no commercial use, and you are only maintaining your premises (pretty flexible) I was covered while driving my tractors on the road. I wonder if they will cover them if I go on a joyride down the road with twenty other local tractors when the farming community goes for a community ride...
If I put my tractor on a trailer, no coverage whatsoever unless I buy it specifically.
I am a retired Travelers underwriter and agent, and spent a year of my life teaching these policies to trainees in Hartford.
The big print giveth.
The small print taketh away
Insurance is very competitive, and despite similarities due to regulation, there are sometimes little extra value added endorsements the companies tack on their policies,
like a free moonroof. Companies like Farm Bureau and others might have these little extras. Erie is a fine company btw.
One should buy insurance only for things you can't afford to pay for. That's a different threshold for all of us, and thankfully one can use higher deductibles to keep costs down.
But the "am I covered" question comes up in TBN constantly.
