Beware What You Write or It May Not Be All Right

Imagine my utmost surprise when in my mail yesterday comes a notice saying my farm liability and coverage for home and buildings and equipment insurance is being cancelled for the following reasons: CSA income, coffee roasting and catering without a proper insurance. How did this all come about? Right here on the blog, apparently. Last year on August 9th, I mentioned we were trying to increase our CSA shares, would like to find a commercial kitchen as people wanted to purchase our coffee (which I roast at home for my own enjoyment and sometimes share some with a friend, it is not available commercially) and that we might like to supplement our farm by offering that option. It was a musing of hopes, but apparently was taken as gospel. Instead of calling me and asking me the questions, out of right field I received the upper right cut to the jaw. BAM. Take that.

I can't even fathom where my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares even come into the equation. That is an agreement for purchase of my farms products prior to the season in exchange for payment. It is like a sale at a farm stand, except it is a pre-sale. And the partnership with the other farms (which we called Farm Gal Pals) fell apart, so we are only offering the single farm CSA's, you can get the info on our website. And I pass all the sales through my farm, so it is all reported. So what does my farm sales have to do with this? And if farm sales do have something to do with this - why is it 6 months into the policy before this comes to the table?

And so we are clear here, my value added products are either: made commercially if I cannot make it at: KHI Foods in Burlington, KY; made it our kitchen when permitted by using my state license of Home Processor, or my state license of Micro-Processor. I also sample foods at my booth at my farmers market using my state approved ALL SAMPLES license. A couple weeks ago we did have food at a private event, but it was made in a commercial kitchen by people in that kitchen, with some farm products to represent the farm, but was not made by the farm.

We are looking for a commercial kitchen to rent, and when it is time to consider the insurance I need to cover an operation of that sort, be advised we will make sure to have the proper insurance required by law.

So, insurance agents and insurance company, instead of blindsiding your clients, and taking the words of a blog as gospel truth - try asking a few questions first and making decisions after - instead of the other way around. I guess I will start looking for a new insurer.