A rash of barn fires across Canada have highlighted the need for proper coverage, as an Ontario-area farmer loses his operation to flames for the second time in three years.
Dairy farmer Chris Ryan lost his barn and herd of dairy cows when they went up in flames last Saturday while he was away on vacation. The fire killed 57 of his milking cows – a cost that may not be entirely covered, though he says he has insurance.
Fires that are proven due to weather may trigger coverage from joint provincial-national programs (run through Agricorp in Ontario), should the farmer have purchased a policy.
“Anything that’s weather related, they cover the crops when they’re sitting in the field, provided somebody would buy it,” says Mike Brine, agribusiness specialist at Trillium Mutual Insurance Company.
However, he adds it’s not always clear what causes barn fires, with half the reported blazes this year not having a clear ignition source.
“There have been some large barn fires this year for sure,” he says. “The causes seem to be all over the map – in the event of a barn fire it can be very difficult to determine what the actual cause of it was. There are a lot of different ignition sources within an operation and if the fire’s hot, it’s quite likely you won’t find anything there anyway.”
Coverage for livestock can be purchased as part of a separate agriculture policy, which does include some fire protection.
“From our standpoint we’re looking at residents for the farmers on the farm, any outbuildings they may have be it for product storage, crop storage or machinery, or livestock,” Brine says. “The only coverage for the crop in the field is there’s some fire coverage for that, if you’ve bought coverage for the produce if it’s in storage, there’s also some coverage there for fire damage.”
“Livestock operations, we would be covering the outbuilding that they’re in, the livestock itself and then also business interruptions insurance is available for the operations.”
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