Your farm is not one risk. It's a home, a business and a lifestyle, all running off the same paddocks.

Not sure this is the right cover for you? See who this is for.

Farm insurance bundles five things most owners never think to separate: your home on the property, your farm buildings and fences, your machinery and farm vehicles, your livestock, produce and stored feed, and your liability if someone is hurt while they are on your land. A standard home policy or a generic business pack stops well short of covering all five. Consolidated Insurance Brokers builds one farm pack around what your operation actually does.

Most insurance is written for people whose home is not also their business. A city apartment policy does not ask whether you host farm-gate sales on weekends. A standard business pack does not ask whether your tractor is worth what you paid for it or what it would actually cost to replace. Get the home, the buildings, the machinery, the livestock or the liability wrong and you find out at the worst possible time, at claim time, with the shed already burnt down or the header already written off.

We work this country. Our farm insurance specialist is based in our Bundaberg office, in genuine cane, horticulture and cattle country. When we build your farm pack, we start with what your property actually does, not a generic template, and we make sure your sum insured is a real number, not a guess that was accurate five years ago.

What it covers

Quick answerA proper farm pack covers five things, each insured on its own terms: your home and any other domestic buildings on the property; your farm buildings and fixed structures, meaning sheds, workshops, silos, cattle yards and fencing; your machinery and farm vehicles; your livestock, produce and stored feed; and your liability if someone is hurt on the property or by something connected to your farm.

Flood is not covered on farm property on any of the five farm wordings we have read, and that holds true across the broker-distributed rural insurance market generally, not just ours - though on two of them, flood damage while goods are in transit is covered. We are aware of one insurer that has started building flood into its farm property cover as standard, but it sells direct to farmers only and is not available through any broker, including us. Do not assume 'comprehensive' farm insurance covers flood on your buildings or land. If flood is a genuine risk on your property, it needs to be planned for outside the policy, and we will tell you that plainly rather than leave you guessing.

If you grow cane or run horticulture, our Bundaberg office also places dedicated crop and hail cover alongside your farm pack. That is not something we can quote automatically online, so call us on 07 4331 5555 to talk it through.

Two more covers sit outside the five buckets above and are worth asking about specifically: business interruption, if an insured loss stops your income while you rebuild or replace (see Business Interruption Insurance), and equipment breakdown, for mechanical or electrical failure that is not fire, storm or theft damage (see Equipment Breakdown Insurance).

If your farm also runs contracting work with larger plant, earthmoving equipment or gear that leaves the property regularly, that usually sits better on a dedicated plant and equipment policy alongside your farm pack, not squeezed into it.

Where farm underinsurance hides

Quick answerUnderinsurance on a farm usually hides in two places. The shed that was built or bought years ago and never revalued is still at risk from underinsurance, just not through an average clause. On the two farm wordings we hold, each item is capped at its own sum insured: on any loss, partial or total, the most the insurer pays for that item is the sum insured figure, so an out-of-date valuation leaves the gap between that figure and the real cost yours to fund either way. (Where a building policy does carry an average clause, the maths is worked through in The Co-Insurance Clause: What Every Building Owner Must Know.) The machinery schedule that still lists what was paid for the tractor a decade back is the second place. It works the same way: an out-of-date sum insured can cap what you receive, whatever the machine is really worth.

This is not a farm-specific problem invented to sell you something. Across small-to-medium businesses generally, only around 1 in 10 think they are underinsured, but when quantity surveyors actually measure the gap it averages 24%, and 31% for industrial-style buildings (MCG Quantity Surveyors, alongside ICA/Woolcott 2015 and the Vero SME Insurance Index 2025 on the self-report side). A farm shed or workshop is built the same way an industrial shed is, and construction costs have moved the same way for both. A number that was accurate when the shed went up is very unlikely to be accurate now.

These disputes are won and lost on evidence, not sympathy. In one Australian case, an insurer refused to pay for a storm-damaged shed, arguing that corrosion in the steel footings was the real cause of the collapse, not the storm. The Australian Financial Complaints Authority disagreed: the wind that day was strong enough to blow parts of the shed away, and while the corrosion was real, AFCA was not persuaded it was what caused the damage, so the insurer was ordered to pay the repair cost plus an uplift (an Australian determination reported by insurancenews.com.au, 2022).

The lesson is not "insurers always pay." It is that what actually caused the damage decides the outcome, and where a policy responds on its face it is the insurer that has to prove an exclusion applies.

We also work in a part of Queensland that knows what real flood and storm risk looks like. The Bundaberg region has been through repeat floods and disaster declarations, and our people have seen first-hand what those events do to local properties and businesses. We are not telling you this to scare you. We are telling you because a broker who has actually seen what these events do locally asks better questions about your sum insured than one who has not.

How we do it differently

Anyone can sell you a farm policy off a comparison site in five minutes. What that five minutes will not do is work out how each machine on your schedule would be settled, or whether the figure beside it is still right. It will not ask whether your farm-gate sales are actually covered, or whether the shed you built three years ago is insured for what it costs to replace today, not what it cost to build back then.

Our farm insurance specialist works out of our Bundaberg office, in the same cane, horticulture and cattle country most of our farm clients work in, not at a call centre reading a script about paddocks it has never seen. That specialist will tell you plainly that no insurer on our farm panel currently covers flood, rather than let a "comprehensive" farm policy imply cover that is not there. If you grow cane or run horticulture, the same office can also place dedicated crop and hail cover alongside your farm pack.

We are not going to claim a special process for every type of farming operation, because we do not run one. What we do is treat your machinery schedule and your sum insured as things that need checking against how they are actually valued, not assumed, and tell you honestly where cover such as flood simply is not available anywhere on the broker market right now, rather than sell you the comfort of a policy that does not do what you think it does.

Who needs this

This page is for you if you own or run a farm in Australia, whatever scale that is. Most of the clients we work with are small beef and cattle producers, with a good number of cotton and other crop growers alongside them, and we also work with hobby blocks and cane, horticulture and dairy operations of every size. If you run machinery, carry livestock or stored produce, or let the public onto your property for farm-gate sales, farm stays, market days or school visits, this page is written for you.

If you grow cane or run horticulture, our Bundaberg office also places dedicated crop and hail cover alongside your farm pack.

If your farm is owned by one entity (a trust or company) while you run the business day to day, the way you structure your policies matters as much as what they cover. See For Business Owner-Occupiers for that side of the conversation. If you are in the Wide Bay-Burnett region, our Bundaberg office, home to our farm insurance specialist, covers exactly this country. See our Bundaberg office.

Common mistakes

Not telling your insurer about farm-gate sales, farm stays, market stalls or letting groups use your land for camping or events. A private farm policy is written for private farming activity. The moment paying members of the public are regularly on your property for something other than farming, that is a different risk, and if you have not told your insurer, a liability claim from a visitor can find your policy does not respond the way you assumed.
Leaving the sum insured on the machinery schedule at what each machine cost years ago. That figure is the ceiling on what you can be paid for the item, whatever the machine turns out to be worth, and the basis it is settled on differs between farm policies. Check it at every renewal, and ask us what basis each machine actually sits on.
Sheds, silos, cattle yards and fencing left off the schedule or valued at what they cost to build years ago. These are usually cheaper to insure properly than owners assume, and expensive to discover were undervalued after a fire or storm.
Assuming emergency agistment and fodder costs are automatically covered, or covered without limit, after a bushfire destroys pasture. On both wordings we hold, the trigger is fire; flood does not trigger this cover at all, so do not assume flood-destroyed pasture is included under this benefit at any limit. Where this cover exists it is usually sub-limited by dollar amount and by time, so it is worth knowing your actual limit before you need it, not after.
Buying new machinery, adding a shed, or expanding into a new activity (a bigger herd, a new crop, a farm-stay sideline) without updating the policy. A farm pack is only as good as the schedule behind it, and the schedule is only accurate the day someone last checked it.

Common questions

Farm Insurance Australia: your questions answered

What does farm insurance cover in Australia?

A farm insurance pack in Australia typically bundles five sections: the homestead and any domestic buildings, farm buildings and fixed structures such as sheds and fencing, machinery and farm vehicles, livestock and stored produce or feed, and your liability if someone is hurt on the property. Each section is chosen and sized separately, so the policy only protects what has actually been included.

Should farm machinery be insured for agreed value or market value?

This is often not a choice you make on the spot. The basis differs between farm policies, and your schedule is what says which one you are on, so that is the document to read or to send us. Whatever the basis, the sum insured beside each item is the ceiling on what you can be paid, so an out-of-date figure caps your payout well below what the machine is really worth. Keeping that figure current is the part you control.

Is flood covered under farm insurance?

No. None of the insurers we place farm insurance with currently cover flood on farm property, and that holds true across the broker-distributed rural insurance market generally, not just our panel. We are aware of one insurer that has started building flood into its farm cover as standard, but it sells direct to farmers only and is not available through any broker, including us. If flood is a genuine risk on your property, treat it as a gap to plan for separately, not as something a "comprehensive" farm policy already covers.

Do I need to tell my insurer about farm-gate sales, farm stays or agistment?

Yes. A standard farm policy is written for private farming activity, and regularly bringing paying members of the public onto your property for farm-gate sales, farm stays, market days or school visits is a different risk that needs to be declared. If it is not on the policy, a visitor injury claim can find the cover does not respond the way you assumed.

How do I know if my farm shed is underinsured?

Farm sheds end up underinsured for the same reason commercial buildings do: the sum insured was set once, often years ago, and never revisited while construction costs kept rising. If your shed's insured value has not changed since it was built or bought, it is very likely short of what it would actually cost to rebuild today. A proper valuation, not a guess carried forward from the last renewal, is the only way to know for certain.

My premium has gone up. Should I just reduce my cover, or insure the sheds for what I could build them for myself?

We hear both of these at almost every renewal, and both usually cost more than they save. Cutting sums insured to chase a cheaper premium recreates the exact underinsurance gap described above. On the two farm wordings we hold, that gap is a hard cap, not a scaled reduction: a shed insured for less than it costs to rebuild is never paid more than that lower figure, on a small claim or a total loss alike. And "I can build my sheds cheaper than that" is usually true only in a quiet season with your own labour: an insured rebuild has to cover demolition, debris removal and a contractor rebuilding at today's rates, after an event, when everyone else in the region is rebuilding too. If the premium is the problem, talk to us about the excess and the structure of the cover before touching the sums insured.

Where to go next

Get your farm properly covered.

Buildings, machinery, livestock and liability, checked as one policy, not five separate guesses.

Call now, most enquiries are settled in one conversation - or leave your details and we'll ring within 90 minutes on a new enquiry (8am–6pm Mon–Fri).

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