Did you know refrigeration has only been commonplace in North America since the 1920s and 30s? Today, it seems impossible to think of preserving the meats and produce from farming without cooling and freezing! While refrigeration preserves freshness for products to reach consumers, it also helps farms:

• Increase storage
• Reduce food waste
• Preserve animal genetics

How farmers use cooling and freezing depends completely on their unique needs. This article will highlight both freestanding and walk-in refrigeration and describe a few common examples for farms, including a claim scenario.

Freestanding Cooling and Freezing

Generally, smaller producers will use freestanding cooling and freezing. However, larger farms may have units to supplement their needs! Whether commercial grade or residential, freestanding equipment is not bolted to the floor or the building.

Examples of farm use:

• A dairy farmer using a small freezer for milk samples
• An egg farmer who has an additional small operation for cut and wrapped meat using several commercial freezers
• A produce farm selling products from their farming, such as pierogis, cabbage rolls, and premade frozen pies

Walk-in Cooling and Freezing

Larger farms will most likely have a cooler or freezer bolted to the floor of a farm building, attached to the wall, or a custom-built unit. Equipment may be customized with large doors to accommodate machinery or special technology to monitor temperature and send alerts if the unit malfunctions.

Examples of farm use:

• Dairy farm with large milk tanks to store product until it is collected by licensed transporters
• Ranch with a specialized cryogenic freezer for semen samples
• Berry farm storing harvested farm produce
• Ranch or hog farms storing cut and wrapped meat

Coverages

Insurance can protect your farm equipment from insurable losses. It is always helpful to be specific with your insurance broker on what equipment you have. Then, together you can find the right coverage whether you are protecting a residential grade chest freezer or a fully customized walk-in refrigeration unit with custom options.

Farm Contents

The “contents” of a farm are the physical property used in farming operations. Contents include refrigerators and freezers, whether they are commercial or residential grade. The ideal way to choose your coverage amount is to complete an inventory of all your contents, add up the total dollar amount, and estimate higher to ensure there is enough coverage. For big-ticket items, it helps to track the make, model, serial number, and year. Three chest freezers with a capacity of 25 cubic feet each might add $5,000 to the contents total.

Farm Building

When refrigeration is bolted to the floor of a building, or attached to it in some way, it is insured as part of the building value. These coolers and freezers are considered equipment and must be valued as part of the farm building.

For example, if a farmer has a building valued at $1 million, then attaches a $30,000 refrigeration unit to the building, the best practice is to add it to the building’s total insured value: $1.03 million. This ensures the farmer has enough insurance to replace the unit if it is damaged by an insured peril. If this amount is not included in the farm building value, there is a chance a partial or total loss will trigger a co-insurance penalty. In other words, the farmer could be under insured and responsible for thousands of dollars of repairs.

Farm Equipment Breakdown

Equipment breakdown coverage can repair or replace farm equipment when the loss is due to a breakdown of mechanical, electrical, or pressurized equipment. Without this coverage, equipment breaking down is often excluded from farm insurance policies.

Products

Generally, separate insurance coverages apply for the products, produce, and stock within cooling and freezing units.

Claim Example

A blueberry farm located in Surrey, BC produces thousands of kilograms of berries over 15 acres. While most of the harvest is sold to produce wholesalers and distributors, the farm also has a small farm-gate sale operation selling fresh berries by the kilogram and frozen blueberry goods including pies; sorbet; and ice cream.

The farm has a custom, walk-in cooler attached to their farm building to store fresh berries. There are also six large chest freezers in the building’s commercial kitchen to properly store prepared goods.

A grid failure, and subsequent power surge when the electricity was restored damaged a lot of the equipment in the farm building. After confirming coverage for Farm Equipment Breakdown in the insurance policy, the farm was reimbursed for the emergency work to repair the refrigeration unit in the cooler.

The power surge also damaged the electronics beyond repair to four of the six chest freezers. Protection for these units was found under the Farm Contents coverage, and they were replaced with units of a similar kind and quality.

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This content is for informational purposes only and these examples summarize actual and possible losses and coverage. For all terms, conditions, and exclusions, consult the actual policy.