What Breaks, Gets Stolen, or Gets Hit by Lightning

Technology losses on farms have a different pattern than equipment losses, and they are more frequent than most operators expect.\n\nTheft is first. Guidance receivers and displays are small, valuable, standardized, and easy to remove from a cab in an unlit machine shed. They are among the more commonly stolen items on a farm, and in many cases they are also the hardest to replace quickly in season.\n\nLightning and electrical surge is second. A strike near a shop or a grain facility can take out displays, controllers, modems, weather stations, and the network gear that connects them, without damaging anything that looks broken from outside.\n\nWater and dust damage from normal field conditions, cab leaks, and pressure washing accounts for a steady share of losses.\n\nDrones have their own loss profile: flyaways, crashes into trees and power lines, water landings, and loss of signal. They are also liability producing, which is different from everything else on this list.

• Theft of receivers and displays from cabs and machine sheds is common and seasonally disruptive
• Lightning and surge can disable electronics across a whole operation at once
• Water, dust, and washing damage accumulate through normal use
• Drones crash, fly away, and create liability exposure that other equipment does not
• Downtime during a planting or harvest window is an income loss, not just a repair bill

Where the Coverage Actually Sits

Farm policies are package policies, and technology can fall into several places or none.\n\nFarm personal property or scheduled farm machinery is where guidance equipment usually sits, if it was ever added. The common failure is simple: the farm bought a sixty thousand dollar guidance and auto steer package three years ago and never told anyone, so it is not on the schedule. Equipment permanently attached to a tractor may be covered as part of that tractor\'s value, which is only helpful if the tractor\'s insured value was increased to reflect it.\n\nElectrical surge and lightning treatment varies. Lightning is a standard covered peril, but artificially generated electrical current can be excluded or limited, and mechanical or electrical breakdown is generally excluded. Equipment breakdown coverage addresses the breakdown side and is worth having for operations with grain handling, irrigation, and refrigeration as well.\n\nUnmanned aircraft are frequently excluded from farm liability policies, because the aircraft exclusion in many liability forms is broad enough to capture a drone. Drone coverage is generally arranged specifically, with hull coverage for the aircraft and payload and liability coverage for third party injury and property damage.

• Confirm guidance systems, displays, and sensors are actually on the schedule at current replacement cost
• Check how your policy treats lightning, artificial electrical current, and mechanical breakdown
• Assume drones are excluded from farm liability unless specifically addressed
• Treat data and software as a cyber exposure, not a farm property exposure
• Review whether equipment attached to a tractor is covered within that tractor\'s insured value

Update Your Farm Schedule

If your technology has outgrown your policy schedule, winter is the right time to fix it. We work with production farms, ranches, and agribusiness operations and will walk your equipment list with you, reconcile it to the policy, and address drones and cyber separately. Schedule a conversation at calendly.com/grandbayfinancial.\n\nThis article is for general information and is not a substitute for policy language or professional advice.