Farmers and rural clients face a host of challenges spanning from the weather to cyber risk – and with the agricultural sector key for the Australian economy and for insurance brokers, Jim Karafilis, head of regional & rural at Insurance House, said that a host of risks are on the horizon for rural clients.
Karafilis said that while unpredictable weather is an obvious peril for farming and rural clients, there are a host of other risk areas that brokers can educate clients on.
“Management liability is something that we are really educating our business clients on and our large farming clients,” Karafilis told Insurance Business. “Because of management liability and the exposures that evolve out of that, we have seen some significant claims…but it is still a product that is not really well understood.
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“That is where the litigation that you are seeing through employment practices is huge.”
Karafilis noted that, while rural and regional areas may not have a hi-tech reputation, they do face high-tech risk. Like any industry, agriculture faces a growing threat from cyber risk and Karafilis said that for regional clients, a cyberattack could be particularly damaging.
“Being remote, they can effectively lose access to the outside world and that is a major risk,” Karafilis continued.
Meanwhile, much has been made of the multi-peril crop insurance market in Australia with Government support a hot button issue. While there are different solutions available for crop-based clients and while the Government is being more proactive, the insurance industry needs to find a solution, Karafilis said.
In addition, he noted that while every day may be a challenge for those living and working in regional and rural communities across the country, their resilience is underappreciated.
“They are very resilient people, farmers - it is pretty hard going out there and I don’t think a lot of people really appreciate that,” he said.
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