I spent a fair bit of time thinking about what to write about this week and my mind kept circling back to the following saying or adage or whatever it is.
“The only two certainties in life are death and taxes.”
Although it has been used and adapted many times, by many people, most notably Mark Twain, the quote originated with Benjamin Franklin in 1789.
While death and taxes certainly do seem inevitable, I would suggest that there are other certainties in life. The one that I’ve been thinking about is … insurance.
Insurance?
I’m no insurance expert, nor am I an insurance provider. I do, however, have a healthy appreciation for the benefits of insurance, as heaven knows, I have enough of it (by choice and necessity).
We often prepare ourselves physically to launch into the frenzy of the growing season by gathering our inputs and supplies and making detailed schedules and plans. We prepare to focus on the areas where we will apply the vast majority of our skill and effort. But it is also important to make sure that we have addressed the supports and safety nets that we put/have in place, all of which we hope to never actually need to use.
As I said, I’m no insurance expert, so I will take the approach of raising different points for consideration that you would then discuss with your insurance provider. By doing some advance planning and list-making, I think that you will be better prepared to ensure that you are covered against all reasonable possibilities.
Start wide, build a skeleton, then put some detail on it
If you are new to the business, start by outlining your main areas of activity. Start wide and then narrow things down. For example, maybe you are a production farm that markets product direct to the consumer on-farm and through three Farmers’ markets. You have an educational component to the activities that you conduct on-farm. You have an assortment of full-time and part-time seasonal employees. You do some on-farm processing.
As you outline the main areas, drill down on some of the activities and details that relate to each area. For the production, you grow X number of crops, over the course of 6 months. The majority of your plants are started from seed, which is planted by 2 different equipment operators (you and a manager). You bring in any started plants from another operation, however, the transplants are planted using employees. You utilize pesticides to a limited extent, and they are only applied by you, who is a licensed and trained applicator. You have standard operating procedures and protocols for all of your production practices.
Don’t forget external and internal human elements
For your customer interactions, you estimate that you have X customers (and associated vehicles) on the farm in a given day, for X number of weeks. Customers can do specific activities while on your farm, which you could outline. For any educational elements, what are the age groups, what are the sorts of activities, how freely do they roam (if at all)? How frequent are these sorts of activities?
For employees, what are the age ranges and what sorts of activities and responsibilities does each do? What sort of training and safety procedures do you have in place?
Hopefully, you get the idea. The concept is to make a detailed list of your activities and the people that might be involved so that when you sit down with your insurance person, you can easily outline what you are doing for them. By having thought about each of those areas in some detail, you can comment on and respond to the questions of the insurer.
What if you’ve been there and done that?
If you are an established business, do you need to talk to your insurance provider, or do you just keep on trucking? I’d say … probably. Each year, I think that there is still value in doing a scan of your operation and listing any new items or changes to your operation that might be important. Then check in with the insurance person. Maybe you need to add an additional rider to your policy. Maybe you don’t need something anymore, as you’ve dropped something off what you were offering. It never hurts to keep the insurance professional in the loop.
Over the years, I’ve definitely seen (and heard reports from clients) that it pays to connect with the right insurance provider, specifically one that understands the nature of your business (and the common risks of your main industry). Check and see if your primary industry association has a relationship or deal with an insurance supplier or consult with your peers for recommendations. Chances are, you’ll find a company that will be a comfortable fit with you.
Insurance isn’t something that you might want, or something that you might use much, but you certainly need it, just in case.