Insurance for Accidentally Mis-spraying Your Own Crops?

[Robert]

I'd rashly assumed we had this cover (perhaps hidden in a broader loss title) for e.g. accidentally slipping a can of something damaging into the wrong tank mix and killing off whatever you sprayed with that tank load. However on digging deeper at recent renewal, this is apparently not the case - nor is it possible to get cover i'm told. Does anyone have such cover / can you identify its cost? Thanks

 

[Sid]

If you have a milk taint/ antibiotic failure and your milk puts down a tanker or silo.
All the milk that is affected is cover apart from your own.

Non collection, ie not your fault then your covered.

Basically you should know better

 

[Will7]

I'd rashly assumed we had this cover (perhaps hidden in a broader loss title) for e.g. accidentally slipping a can of something damaging into the wrong tank mix and killing off whatever you sprayed with that tank load. However on digging deeper at recent renewal, this is apparently not the case - nor is it possible to get cover i'm told. Does anyone have such cover / can you identify its cost? Thanks

No, you can’t get cover for your own crops

 

[Paul E]

Guess who's left some Roundup in the tank.

(done that, but it was only on some nettles. Which it also killed along with the paddock of grass. )

 

[Exfarmer]

Guess who's left some Roundup in the tank.

(done that, but it was only on some nettles. Which it also killed along with the paddock of grass. )

Better than a friend of mine who put 5 litres of roundup in a mix on 20 acres of sugarbeet ?

 

[Pateleygrower]

If you have a milk taint/ antibiotic failure and your milk puts down a tanker or silo.
All the milk that is affected is cover apart from your own.

Non collection, ie not your fault then your covered.

Basically you should know better

NFU Mutual can give you cover for your own milk. Ask your local agent

 

[Al R]

Know of a “contractor” who has done a serious amount of mistakes, spraying off new leys he’d only put in a few weeks before etc.. no idea how it’s covered but I know he’s had some big payouts to pay to rectify the problems!

 

[Chris F]

Professional indemnity would cover you for other people’s crops.

Is this a question about your own crops?

 

[DanniAgro]

Surely if you pay enough you can get cover for anything from a broker? That's what I understood.

 

[Against_the_grain]

Unfortunately we had this situation last year. New to us sprayer driver who tbh in hindsight was a complete waster. Managed to spray 30ha of beans in may with a sugar beet chem we suspect.
Beans failed to pod. Ended up mowing the lot. Over 100t of beans we didnt harvest. Work the cost out yourself!
Insurance wouldn't cover. If we had of done this to someone else crop, or someone else had done it to our crop then we would of be covered but not by us to us on own crop. Basically its negligence.

If it makes you feel better I believe it happens more than you think!

 

[ewald]

Some years ago father sprayed a field of oats (luckily only 10 acres) with Commando - a wild oat herbicide - unsurprisingly the crop didn't like it....
His excuse was that he got confused because the intended chem also began with a letter C - there were no recriminations or raised voices, but I took over the spraying that autumn by mutual consent

 

[Zebbedee]

As a contractor we are covered for human error whilst spraying and I would have expected that to cover my own crops as well, NFU by the way

 

[Zebbedee]

Thinking about some of the replies above it would appear that some farms may be relying on public liability insurance which would cover 3 Rd party damage eg drift over next doors tatties but not your own damage crop etc.

 

[neilo]

Unfortunately we had this situation last year. New to us sprayer driver who tbh in hindsight was a complete waster. Managed to spray 30ha of beans in may with a sugar beet chem we suspect.
Beans failed to pod. Ended up mowing the lot. Over 100t of beans we didnt harvest. Work the cost out yourself!
Insurance wouldn't cover. If we had of done this to someone else crop, or someone else had done it to our crop then we would of be covered but not by us to us on own crop. Basically its negligence.

If it makes you feel better I believe it happens more than you think!

Has he been given further ‘training’, and can he sit down yet?

 

[neilo]

As a contractor we are covered for human error whilst spraying and I would have expected that to cover my own crops as well, NFU by the way

Surely that would be too open to abuse? My Winter Barley, that will soon be getting a squirt of glyphosate, looked very much like doing 5t/ac....?

 

[Farmer Roy]

Insurance doesn’t cover you if you torch your own car . . .

 

[Steevo]

Unfortunately we had this situation last year. New to us sprayer driver who tbh in hindsight was a complete waster. Managed to spray 30ha of beans in may with a sugar beet chem we suspect.
Beans failed to pod. Ended up mowing the lot. Over 100t of beans we didnt harvest. Work the cost out yourself!
Insurance wouldn't cover. If we had of done this to someone else crop, or someone else had done it to our crop then we would of be covered but not by us to us on own crop. Basically its negligence.

If it makes you feel better I believe it happens more than you think!

Sounds like it might be a good idea to have an agreement with a neighbour - I spray yours, you spray mine. Everybody covered.

 

[Steevo]

Insurance doesn’t cover you if you torch your own car . . .

Even by accident?!

 

[Farmer Roy]

Haha - I accidentally poured a jerry can of petrol over it & accidentally flicked my lighter near it . . .

tbh - if you “accidentally” spray your crops with the wrong product, you probably aren’t fit to be driving a spray rig. Makes you wonder how accurate the spray logs & record keeping would be also . . .

I wonder what your farm assurance schemes would think of that

 

[Farmer Roy]

Apart from anything else, it has serious environmental & health issues as well . . .

also legal issues, as you are effectively spraying chemicals “off label” in situations & crops they are not registered for . . .

thinking that through & using the car analogy again, it’s a bit like asking if you can insure against speeding, or drink driving