# Tractor and cat need insurance advice



## kfarm_EC_IL (Aug 5, 2008)

One of our cats went through the radiator on my 5460MF. Water coming out and the cat is stuck up underneath MFWD drive shaft.

My question is will our farm insurance cover this?

Had a neighbor put his loader hay fork in back tire of same tractor (Michelin 2 yr) and the insurance said no? Need some advice starting to wonder what they will cover.

Thanks for your thoughts
Mark k


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## enos (Dec 6, 2009)

Depends if your cat was registered on the insurance policy, Would the cat's family have any claim to the benifits first? Who is going to support the cat's family? Is the cat a barn cat? Then it would be thought of as an employee and covered by workman's comp. This is what sunday's are all about.


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## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

Sorry to hear about the cat incident Mark. Insurance for a car will cover this I think...so you might as well ask...but your deductible may not make it worthwhile. Plus these companies hate the small claims. Tell them it was huge cat and jumped in front of your tractor and and what is wrapped up is all that is left. Insurance does seem to be more limited all the time. Is it a big job to pull the radiator on that tractor? The cat unraveling sounds like a PIA. Good Luck.


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## chief-fan (Aug 27, 2009)

Depends on what coverage you have on the tractor. If it is an "All Perl" or "All Risk" coverage, it should cover it. If it is strictly a liability police, then it will NOT cover it. Insurance is a strange business. As a former adjuster I have had all kind of incidents that were and were not covered. Had a parking break fail and the tractor rolled into the machine shed. Tractor and shed both covered. Same shed and tractor but operator got to close to the door and slid on ice and tore the door up. No coverage as the owner (or employee or other resident) was operating the tractor. One never knows exactly what coverage you have till you need it - then it is to late. Good luck on your claim should you decide to file one. Don't wait to long before you file a claim. If you start to do the repair yourself and then decide to file the claim it may be denied as the company did not have the opportunity to examine the damage before you worked on it. It don't cost anything to file the clam and let them look it over and say yes or no.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Like Chief-fan says there are different levels of insurance.My insurance co has a basic coverage and what they call "special form" that covers MOST things but not all.For instance it will cover a rock going in a combine but will not cover hitting a rock with a plow and breaking the plow.BTDT.Tip a tractor/loader on its side and twist loader"not covered because it was not overturned completly"

The way the policies are written they can be interpited different ways by different people.

The cat wasn't at war with you,you wouldn't be covered.lol.

Good Luck


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## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

Too bad for you and the Cat,

something that I would also consider is how the insurance company will react.

I lost a hay barn this last year in a wind storm, had insurance with a major company (SF) and called in my claim, well like someone else said "it doesnt cost you anything to make the claim", well so I thought so too.

The company was good about settling the claim, the next week they cancelled me..When I went to look for other insurance, no one would touch me as I just had a lost/claim.

well after calling my agent and reminding them of our conversation, which I said "if this is going to be a reason to cancell me", and of course everyone said it would not, then just forget it.

Well it was for someone in an office, miles away who determined that I had other barns and buildings that could become a lost for them in the future, so they want to minimize their risk.

well his boss and his boss would not chnage the ruling or over ride that persons decision, so after a period of time and with the help of my agent behind the scenes, and going to the top of the company they reinstated the policy, however it came with a price$$$$$........

will I carefully consider claims in the future, you bet.......and after all I think that was their message.....so you can say.....message received....

good luck to you.


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

Last spring on a piece of rented ground I hit a telephone line with a post hole Auger. AT &T charged me $3000.00. I called my agent as I was not sure how much it was gonna cost and was nervous, My insurance agent said I was covered but I still decided not to claim it, did not want a claim to be registered for small stuff. My agent said after 3 claims they can cancel me.


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## kfarm_EC_IL (Aug 5, 2008)

Thanks for the advice guys


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I think it's BS for insurance co to threaten to cancel for having a claim.You pay the premium and have a legitimate claim it should be paid.It is like blackmail to hold it over your head that you will be droped or they will raise your rates.

I droped an insurance co for not paying on a claim for vandalism yrs back.There are other ins co's out there so if they don't treat me fairly I am going to go somewhere else.I've had my share of claims with my ins co and the agent usually brings up the "you don't want to turn that in"Well if I didn't want to turn it in than why did I pay the premium.Or the" It's not that big just pay it" Well it's above my deductible so it's a legitimate claim.Otherwise raise my dedutible and lower my premium.

The biggest crock is when the agent says you are covered for somthing when you buy the ins and than you are not when you have a claim.


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## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

I so agree, that reminds me of what I told my agent...."as long as I am paying my premium , we are best friends...when I need some help and make a claim, we are no longer friends..."

I was so mad in my situation...but it all worked out....but my point again is...make it count...choose your claims carefully....


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## Production Acres (Jul 29, 2008)

We had our policy written to where we have a very large deductable. Saves a ton of money on premiums as the insurance co knows you don't call at all unless you have a major claim. Really and truly, that is all you want insurance for anway - to keep you from going broke if a major clamity occurs. If you are paying for insurance that will fix tires, the insurance co. is probably making money fixing your tires;.)


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

Production Acres is right on target. I also use a large deductible and it saves me a lot of money. We don't call in small claims and that makes the ins. company very happy. I am like PA, I will wait for the big one!


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## kfarm_EC_IL (Aug 5, 2008)

I suppose size of claim is relative to size of operation. We are small and the tire this summer was $1600 big deal to me and I didn't even tear it up. Got call from the shop can fix the cat damage for about $2000. Again small potatoes to most I suppose.

Dad rolled a tractor 5 years ago and the same company handled the claim. They argued so much with the repair shop that the shop final slapped together and sent it home. Except linkages, cables, need to be adjusted etc. They sent out a car adjuster to look at the damage. We had the disk mower on the tractor at the time of the roll. We had to explain to him what it was. The DM didn't have much damage and so we fixed it. Frame was a little twisted, but didn't want to turn it in. So the next season the frame broke. I should have pushed the issue and didn't.

Having said that we are going to look at a higher deductible after reading you guys posts. I'll have to look for a happy medium somewhere that does serve the worst case purpose. So again thanks for the help.


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## Production Acres (Jul 29, 2008)

$1600 tires are expensive for anyone; but, you could go to the junkyard in a worst case seniaro and maybe get a used one to get by with for maybe $300. Insurance is for the situation where an employee is driving a truck, misses a sign and runs into a car and injures someone, or God forbid, someone dies! Insurance is for the $150,000 tractor that a wire shorts out on and it burns to the ground and you still owe JD $150,000 for it. We had a cap blow on a semi truck last year and hit a minivan in the grill. Our insurance policy has a 5K deductable. New grill for the van was $1,000. Very painfull to write the check to the guy, but I cannot afford my insurance any other way. Had the cap done injury, 5K would be a small drop in the bucket to the check he might have gotten.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

I would say size of your operation would be directly related to the size of your dedutible.When I started farming I had a $250 deductible and the premium was under $300 a yr.I switched ins companies after 10 yrs and no claims they would not pay for some vandalism.Went to another ins co with same agent and raised it to a $500 ded and have been with them about 25 yrs.I've never reallly thought about raising my deductible.As the size of the farm has grown the premiums have gone up.I really hate writing the check every yr but for the amount of coverage I have I wouldn't be without it.And I'm glad I have a smaller deductible after thinking back.

If I would of had a 5K deductible for the last 25 yrs and my premiums were 1/2 price I would have come out on the short end.Looking back it seems like most of my claims would of been under 5K.Actually after thinking about it I think the ins co is behind.Probably lucky I haven't been canceled.

Different strokes for different folks.

I know a guy that carries a million dollar deductible on a trucking co.He had to put up a million dollar bond to get the trucks licensed.Than he carries a large liability policy over that.Basically self insured.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

middleTn said:


> Too bad for you and the Cat,
> 
> something that I would also consider is how the insurance company will react.
> 
> ...


What use is insurance that won't pay a claim, or cancel you the minute you have a claim, or jump your premiums completely through the roof. Only thing worse than no insurance is BAD INSURANCE (and I'm not so sure no insurance is worse!).

My great-granddad didn't believe in insurance-- saw it as a scheme (and it is, basically, and more so every day, ESPECIALLY when it's made MANDATORY (and folks are gonna learn that the hard way via Obamacare, in time... the lessons have already started in a lot of circles!) Thing is, in his day, you could AFFORD to "self insure" and go without coverage and if a barn or house burned, just rebuild it. Nowdays, not so much. If something is financed, it's gotta be insured. Most stuff is SO expensive that it just makes sense to insure, as the loss could be catastrophic. My grandmother, before she passed, was SO upset over increasing insurance premiums on the house and barns that she canceled the coverage on the barns (they're old anyway) and strongly considered dropping coverage on the house. Her feeling was, the house was around 100 years old, and had been built onto many times, and was only worth about $30,000, so why bother? I explained to her how foolish it would be to cancel the coverage NOW... AFTER paying premiums for the last 50-60 years, canceling NOW would save a thousand or two a year, sure... BUT, if it burned down next week, she'd get NOTHING. Sure, when you figure it up, she probably paid more in premiums over those 50-60 years than she'd get if it was a total loss, but that's how insurance works, how they make money, and why companies accept that risk in exchange for money.

The problem is nowdays, is that the companies want the money, but they don't want to pay a [email protected] thing... If you owe them a penny, it better be there before the "drop dead" date or you're SOL. They can owe you $100,000 on a legitimate claim, and they'll do ANYTHING POSSIBLE to weasel out, screw you over, delay, obfuscate, deny, reduce, etc. Usually you have to fight them for it, which just makes the lawyers rich... I went round and round for over a year after a teenage girl rear ended my pickup about a decade ago over a $3,000 dollar claim (damage to the truck, plus ongoing chiropractic treatments) and the only way I FINALLY got paid for the truck damage was to threaten that if I didn't have a check by the following weekend, I'd get the hottest slick-willy lawyer in the country that I could find and sue them for EVERY SINGLE LAST PENNY he could possibly get out of them... I got my check. We owned the truck outright and they kept saying they couldn't pay US, but we HAD to take it to a shop (which IS NOT required in Texas if you own the vehicle outright, no lender or lienholder). Their stupid "claim center" lowballed the repairs by $1,000 bucks compared to even three of their "affliated" shops (NEVER accept payment from one of those "remote claims vehicle" services many insurance companies offer now-- it's a scam to lowball you and once you accept payment, if you find out from the shop it's gonna cost more, you're screwed!) Then they wanted to pay ME for the chiropractic treatments instead of paying him directly, which I refused-- he was billing the insurance company directly and they owed HIM for the services, not ME... (again, if they can get YOU to accept payment, then you're responsible for the difference between HIS bill and what YOU got paid by insurance). It took over a year, but they FINALLY settled up for what was legitimately owed.

I laugh every time I see the "you're in good hands with Allstate" commercials; I tell my wife or anyone else within earshot, "Yeah, well all I got from those SOB's was THE FINGER!"... I wouldn't buy Allstate insurance if they were the last company on Earth...

I will say that my experience last year with USAA was MUCH better... they sent a claims guy, made a fair adjustment, and sent a check within a couple weeks. Guess they've finally figured out simply fighting every claim just drags it all out and makes the lawyers rich at EVERYONE'S expense! It went a LITTLE ways toward raising my estimation of insurance companies as ranking among the lowest of the low alongside politicians, terrorists, and rapists. Now I consider insurance companies slightly above alligator urine.

Don't EVEN get me started about how worthless crop insurance is...

Best of luck to you...

Later! OL JR


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

swmnhay said:


> I think it's BS for insurance co to threaten to cancel for having a claim.You pay the premium and have a legitimate claim it should be paid.It is like blackmail to hold it over your head that you will be droped or they will raise your rates.
> 
> I droped an insurance co for not paying on a claim for vandalism yrs back.There are other ins co's out there so if they don't treat me fairly I am going to go somewhere else.I've had my share of claims with my ins co and the agent usually brings up the "you don't want to turn that in"Well if I didn't want to turn it in than why did I pay the premium.Or the" It's not that big just pay it" Well it's above my deductible so it's a legitimate claim.Otherwise raise my dedutible and lower my premium.
> 
> The biggest crock is when the agent says you are covered for somthing when you buy the ins and than you are not when you have a claim.


BTDT... which is EXACTLY why I won't EVER buy another one of those "warranty extensions" on a vehicle ever again...

Paid an additional $1100 back in 02 when I bought my truck. Less than 6 months later had a problem and "that's not covered-- this isn't covered, that's not covered, the other isn't covered"... Bunch of pure BS. Finally held their feet to the fire on ignition coils and made them replace them under warranty, but I still had to pay for the new catalytic converters out of pocket (but dragged the truck up the street to a muffler shop to do the work for a fraction of what Ford wanted...)

About like the "home repair" insurance-- worthless as the paper it's printed on. You pay premiums, then you need a repair, and "that ain't covered"...

Later! OL JR


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Luke....those threads are 5 years old.....or maybe you knew that and just wanted to be chatty. 

Regards, Mike


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

I just wanna know how the cat faired in this debacle......he seems to be a tossed away casualty, poor cat 

And don't think I ain't already fired off a email to PETA.....


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

somedevildawg said:


> I just wanna know how the cat faired in this debacle......he seems to be a tossed away casualty, poor cat
> And don't think I ain't already fired off a email to PETA.....


Here I jusr rwad the title and didn't bother reading through the old posts. I was thinking he needed insurance coverage on his cat (dozer) and his tractor...


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

deadmoose said:


> Here I jusr rwad the title and didn't bother reading through the old posts. I was thinking he needed insurance coverage on his cat (dozer) and his tractor...


I thought the exact same thing.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

The cat reminds me of a story of a friend of mine.....(circa 1980's)

A friend was at work and his wife calls him and said that she barely got to work in her car and that it died when she pulled in and parked.

So, he calls his brother who is not at work and gets him to drive over to his wife's place of employment to take a look at her car....he agrees.

The brother raises the hood and finds that her cat had got tangled up in a belt, throwing the belt and killing the cat....cat semi-roasted on top of engine block.

The brother hates cats, he is pissed that it is cold and a cat is making him do repairs.....so he slings the cat down behind him just on the other side of sidewalk. Makes said repairs and car is good to go.

Connie finishes work for the day and she walks out to her car with her fellow workers and there lays her precious, but mangled and cooked fluffy......priceless.

Regards, Mike


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

somedevildawg said:


> I just wanna know how the cat faired in this debacle......he seems to be a tossed away casualty, poor cat
> 
> And don't think I ain't already fired off a email to PETA.....


I think you mean the SPCA....assuming that you think the cat's likely demise was an intentional and malicious act. Said cat may have been suicidal. Was an investigation done to see if the cat was depressed? In any case, I suspect that PETA would only be concerned if you ate the cat and were using the mentioned 5460MF as a mobile feline butcher shop.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Mike120 said:


> I think you mean the SPCA....assuming that you think the cat's likely demise was an intentional and malicious act. Said cat may have been suicidal. Was an investigation done to see if the cat was depressed? In any case, I suspect that PETA would only be concerned if you ate the cat and were using the mentioned 5460MF as a mobile feline butcher shop.


I stand corrected.....the SPCA, I see no evidence that said individual was using the 5460 in a way that is consistent with butcher shop activities.....I heard a tale that the cat had been locked in a room full of rockin chairs and was suicidal upon release, idk for sure however.....


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

Vol said:


> The cat reminds me of a story of a friend of mine.....(circa 1980's)
> 
> A friend was at work and his wife calls him and said that she barely got to work in her car and that it died when she pulled in and parked.
> 
> ...


 Great story Mike. In November I went out to the barn to crank the combine to go cut beans.....all of a sudden there was all kind of banging noises and I leaned out of the cab to see what the hell was going on and there was pieces of cat flying off the combine. Best I could tell from the parts there was 3 cats that had crawled up into the combine. Wouldn't have cared if it was in the field but was a mess in the barn to clean up. Never been a fan of cats myself.....there are a ton of feral cats around here......everybody says I should let a few stay around to kill the rats but I say that is what the hawks and snakes are for and they don't climb on and scratch your equipment up.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Vol said:


> Luke....those threads are 5 years old.....or maybe you knew that and just wanted to be chatty.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Yeah... realized that after I posted... didn't think to look at the dates beforehand... Been thumbing through the forums one by one reading topics of interest, regardless of date. Always like to be learning something (and yeah, I can be "chatty" LOL)

Dunno what the feeling here is on "reviving old threads". Sometimes this comes up on the Rocketry forums, when someone gets to reading older threads and makes a comment on one years old. Sometimes it elicits various "holy thread necromancy, Batman!" type comical half-chiding remarks, sometimes it revives a relevant and interesting discussion with new information in a similar vein... Either one usually tends to be kinda interesting IMHO.

If the subject isn't worth discussing further, it usually fades back into the background quickly. Sorry if reviving old threads here with new comments is frowned upon... LOL

I just for the life of me can't figure out why anybody would go to the trouble to re-sign with the same company that just dropped them like a hot potato for a legitimate claim, and at a greatly increased premium. If that ever happened to me, I'd go without insurance before I signed with scum-buzzards like that again-- "fool me once, shame on you-- fool me twice, shame on ME!" kinda thing... "once bitten, twice shy" comes to mind too... and personally I don't like to support bad behavior by a bunch of crooks like that by giving them even MORE of my money... but that's just me... LOL

Later and yall have a good one! OL JR 

Later! OL JR


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

FarmerCline said:


> Great story Mike. In November I went out to the barn to crank the combine to go cut beans.....all of a sudden there was all kind of banging noises and I leaned out of the cab to see what the hell was going on and there was pieces of cat flying off the combine. Best I could tell from the parts there was 3 cats that had crawled up into the combine. Wouldn't have cared if it was in the field but was a mess in the barn to clean up. Never been a fan of cats myself.....there are a ton of feral cats around here......everybody says I should let a few stay around to kill the rats but I say that is what the hawks and snakes are for and they don't climb on and scratch your equipment up.


Yep... BIL's SIL's family runs a BIG seed corn/field corn/beans operation in N. Cent. IN... they rent two big new combines every year and own one or two big ones of their own, all Deeres. Go to fire up one of the rentals one morning and "bangity-bangity-BANG BANG BANG!" when she cranks up. Shut her down and go check, evidently a raccoon decided to camp out inside the fan shroud between the fan and radiator. When she cranked, I guess he decided to make a quick exit, as it turned out via the Pearly Gates... The plastic fan had all but three of the blades shattered off, but amazingly the radiator came through it unpierced... Took 3-4 hours and a few hundred bucks to replace the fan and get her back in the field though. They left the fan by the dumpster outside the shop doors across from the bean pit where I would unload my truck during harvest... I'd have hung it up on a shop wall as a "trophy" (like my brother who bought the mangled grill trim piece off one of the Gran Torinos that were wrecked in the movie "Starsky and Hutch" off FeeBay and hung it up on the wall of his shop as a "conversation piece"... LOL

Later! OL JR


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Years ago when I was still driving a schoolbus, I was still driving my 1996 F-150 I bought from the farm to the school. I'd leave about 6:20 and get back about 8:30 every morning. One morning after I finished my bus route, I walked out to the parking lot to get in the truck to come home and noticed that the truck was "mewling"... After some investigation, I found that one of my wife's stupid cats that had a litter decided to move them from under the porch or wherever to the inside of the front bumper of my pickup-- right in front of the radiator... they were riding on that little flap of rubber the covers the space between the lower lip of the bumper and the radiator. SO, I had to spend the next 10-15 minutes fishing baby kittens out of the bumper, by staring down through that little crack between the grill and the radiator core mount, and reaching through the tow-hook holes in the bumper and trying to catch the little [email protected] Finally gathered them all up in an old box I had in the truck seat.

Got home and pulled up at the end of the house, was greeted by a squalling mama cat looking for her babies... grabbed the box off the truck seat and set it under the porch. She carried them off somewhere else. Don't think she did anything that stupid again, for which I was grateful.

Later! OL JR


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