When Debbie Airey (pictured) gets the opportunity to write and publish the book retelling her career serving the agricultural insurance market, it pledges the surefire promise of a great read. In conversation with IBTalk, the MD of Country & Commercial Insurance Brokers (CCIB) shared some of the more printable stories that have illuminated her time working alongside agricultural people.
“[They’re] a really lovely set of people to work with,” she said. “People say ‘what do you enjoy most about the agricultural sector?’ and it’s basically the honesty, the sometimes brutal honesty, of the farmers… They’re a very loyal client base and that client base is my marketing team, they recommend me and 97% of our inquiries come from existing client referrals.”
Working alongside these individuals, their farms and their families elevates Airey and her team beyond the role of an insurance provider to becoming a friend, a confidant and above all an advisor to them. And alongside the great stories that this relationship provokes, it also allows her to see first-hand the challenges her clients are facing, and what needs to be done to mitigate them. And a key challenge she is seeing at the moment is the health and safety aspect of working in the agricultural sector.
The industry is the highest risk sector for workplace accidents and traditionally farmers haven’t taken health and safety as seriously as they should, she said. Therefore, Airey and her team are actively working with their clients to provide risk assessments regarding health and safety policies, having the right workwear and equipment, etc.
Read more: Debbie Airey reflects on 13 years at CCIB
“Some farmers do [have an attitude] of ‘it’ll be alright, it’ll never happen to me’ but unfortunately I’ve been part of instances where it has happened to them and that’s a really tough learning curve for the family,” she said. “When people get injured or even killed on farms, it can be massive for the farmer. They could have corporate manslaughter charges thrown at them when they’ve never been involved with the police before… These health and safety investigations that go on now can be brutal and can tear families apart, especially when somebody is injured on the farm.”
CCIB can offer farmers templates for such health and safety policies and can support them in finding the right insurance policies, she said, but it is the individuals themselves who have to embrace these. That’s going to be the challenge for the farmers of the future. However, now more children are going to agricultural colleges and it’s encouraging to see them being educated on this crucial topic.
“Like the building sector many years ago, we’ve got a bit short of a shortfall on this area,” she said. “But now they’ve stood up to the breach. And I know, being a farmer’s daughter and working and living on a farm, it is not easy to operate a full health and safety policy that is completely user-friendly.
“But we can’t ignore the fact from the statistics that say that farms have the highest rate of death and injury for young [working] adults. So that’s what I think farmers need to embrace a little bit more and take a lot more seriously.”
