Risk management for farmers
Ask yourself:
- Would you be financially okay if you were no longer able to work?
- Will your current insurance policy work to protect your family, your income and you business?
- How much will you get in the event of a life-threatening condition?
- Do you know about ACC CoverPlus Extra?
Tourelle Lifebrokers specialise in comprehensive risk management cover; policies like Life Cover, Trauma Cover and Farmer’s Disability Income Protection. We also offer ACC expertise, which we make work for your business. We maintain lifelong relationships with our clients (we’ve worked with farmers for three generations so far) and being personally available to handle the claims process, the moment something goes wrong.
Our priority? To ensure that your family and the farm are well taken care of should you no longer be able to work.
Would you be financially okay if this happened to you?
Dairy farmer Andrew Shaw was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in January 2017; he was 40 years old and his wife Lisa was 35. They had three children and a business to run.
Only once they were in this situation did Andrew and Lisa realise the value of having the right insurance cover – and they’d like you to know their story.
5 things you should know about your insurance plan:
1. If you, or a key farm worker were unable to work due to a severe illness or accident, how long do you think your wife, or any other workers could cover the workload between them?
An insurance product called Farmer’s Disability Income Cover will pay a monthly sum into your farming business, enabling you to employ a worker to cover your workload until you return to work fulltime.
2. Based on your past experience; how easy is it to hire a quality labour unit?
Your answer to this question will determine how much monthly income cover you will need under Farmer’s Disability Income Cover. Remember:
3. What are the regular tasks around the farm that you could delay completing if you lost a key labour unit for 3 months or more? What cash reserves do you have, should it be a very busy time on the farm, like calving?
You can delay some tasks, but obviously this will be determined by the time of year. If it were calving time, you’d need replacement labour immediately. Ensure you always have cash at hand to tide the business over until your insurance cover kicks in (most insurance cover has a wait period).
4. If you were for forced to leave the farm to support a child at Starship Hospital, how long could your current cash reverses cover your labour replacement?
Check to see if your existing insurance plan has a children’s trauma clause. There are policies in the market place that will provide a lump sum payment in the event of a child having a trauma condition.
5. Did you know that if you have an exclusion on your policy, you can have this reviewed by the insurance company to see if the exclusion still applies?
An insurance company will place an exclusion on a policy if there is a recent or ongoing history of a condition. If you are symptom and treatment-free from the condition for several years (depending on the type of condition), an insurer will review your exclusion with the premise of having the exclusion removed.
