Goat insurance?

[Pearce Pastures]

Yes, I am totally serious.

I was wide awake last night worrying because the police have alerted our "neighborhood" to a recent set of daytime robberies in the area, while everyone else is off at work. I don't have jack to steal really (my gladware collection) except for my animals. Though I live out in the middle of nowhere, I am lucky enough to have a few retired neighbors who are on the look out.

Question is, what happens to my goats if some wacko stole them all or in the process of robbing me, let them out and they were killed or something? I am making a call but I kind of doubt that homeowners would cover their replacement cost. Any ideas?

 

[Goatherd]

The simple answer to your question is "yes," you can insure farm animals. After that, it gets more technical as to where you live, how much you are willing to pay and the deductible you choose, and other extenuating factors. It may not be available everywhere.

I believe the people who choose to insure livestock are those that rely on them for income and may have a financial hardship should they lose them or have to replace them in order to carry on their business.

This is not to say that you could not buy insurance for any of your animals for any reasons; it might just be the attachment or sentimental value that an animal has to you.

The best person to answer this question for you would be your insurance agent that handles your other policies.

 

[sawfish99]

We have a farm insurance policy for material goods and liability reasons. Some homeowners/renters policies do not offer any insurance protection or liability coverage from goats because they are considered "exotic" under the policy. For example - your goat knocks down a child visiting and that child hits his head, resulting in a concussion. The family or their insurance company sue you to recover the medical costs - does your policy provide liability coverage for your goat? However, even a farm specific policy may not cover the actual livestock (ours doesn't, but does give liability coverage). We have an additional portion of the policy that is a "Care and Use" policy that gives us insurance coverage/protection on someone else's horse in our care (boarding/leasing/etc). That is an Equine specific policy, so I don't think it would extend to goats that were boarded for breeding.

I know in the horse world, you can (and I have in the past) open specific insurance policies to cover the animal for major surgery, illness, loss of use, etc. It is a matter of how much you want to spend on insurance vs the value of the horse. Since you can get similar policies for dogs, I would assume someone writes those policies for goats. However, unless you have very expensive goats, I doubt it is economical.

All that said, it only matters what YOUR insurance policy will actually cover and to know that, call your company to find out.

 

[ksalvagno]

I have farm insurance too. There are livestock insurers who insure just livestock. Wilkins Livestock Insurance is one of them.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Call your homeowners policy holder and ask them. I'm pretty sure they'd be covered under your homeowners policy, at least in the case of theft. As far as liability, you may need different coverage for that.

Really though, if my animals were stolen I'm not sure I'd use the insurance coverage. The deductible alone can be more expensive than what the animals are worth, unless you can prove you have really valuable animals (alpacas would be easy to show this, goats maybe not so much). Plus, then you may lose your claim free discount (if you get one).

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Thank you all so much for the advice (and for not thinking I was completely nuts here). I am calling my company but you have made some good points about cost and the results of making claims. I'll let you know what they say