What is a Hobby Farm?
From small quarter-acre farms to larger rural residential acreages, hobby farms are small farms that do not expect to turn a significant profit from the operation. People who choose to hobby farm may simply have a passion for farming, a sustainability focus, or an ambition to become self-sufficient. Mutual Fire Insurance has the expertise to help hobby farmers of all kinds find the right coverage for their needs.
Each insurance company will have specific guidelines to define its version of a hobby farm. Guidelines may include specified limits to acreage on the hobby farm. Often there is a maximum for gross annual receipts (GAR), in other words total farm profits. Check with your insurance broker to confirm these guidelines.
Coverage Options with Mutual Fire Insurance
When you choose Mutual Fire Insurance to insure your hobby farm, you have a range of specific coverages to protect your home and farm. We are experts in farming and have insured farmers since we were founded in 1902!
Our wordings use regular language to tell you what is covered under your policy. We take out the legalese, and use words like you and your and us and our. This gives the insurance wordings an ease of understanding.
One of the most popular coverage choices for policyholders is the Hobby FarmProtect™ Enhancement endorsement. It adds a variety of farm coverages to your policy for one affordable price. Work with one of our broker partners to find just the right coverage for your needs.
Protecting Farm Buildings
Buildings that are agriculturally designed, or used in whole or part for farming, are considered farm buildings. An insurer will typically, require a farm building to be scheduled, i.e. listed in detail on the insurance policy.
As in many cases for insurance, please be clear and detailed about the use of a building. For example, if a garage is added to the hobby farm insurance policy as a detached private structure, it can’t be used for farming.
A garage that stores a tractor or is used to keep harvested farm produce, is used in part for farming. Even if the garage has homeowner uses such as parking the family car or shelving for camping equipment. Because there is part use for farming, it must be listed on the policy.
Many structures can be considered a farm building, including:
- Barn
- Shed
- Garage
- Workshop
- Quonset
Chat with your insurance broker about all aspects of your hobby farm to ensure you get the right coverage.
Risks Faced by Hobby Farmers
There are specific farm risks that hobby farmers have which cannot be supported with a home insurance policy. Home insurance often excludes or dismisses claims from farming operations because the policies are just not designed to protect farms. Check out our post about the difference between home and hobby farm insurance for all the details!
Some risks are common to all hobby farms, while some are exclusive to the livestock and gardening choices of the owner. Learn more about the risks on acreage in the Insurance Risks and Hobby Farms blog series!
Each post in the series profiles a fictional hobby farm with its farm operations, common insurance coverages, and a few common risks.
Read the entire series:
