Buildings and machinery
Homestead, sheds, workshops, silos and plant against fire and resulting damage.
Bushfire Insurance For Farms
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Bushfire Insurance For Farms
How farm policies respond to bushfire loss.
Bushfire is the peril that hits every part of a farm at once: fencing, stock, pasture, hay, sheds, machinery and often the house. Fire is generally a standard insured event under farm policies, so the real question is rarely whether it is covered. It is whether the sums insured, particularly for fencing, reflect what rebuilding actually costs today.
What is it?
Farms carry bushfire exposure through fuel loads, remoteness and the sheer length of what has to be rebuilt afterwards. The 2019-20 season showed the pattern clearly: kilometres of destroyed fencing, stock losses, burnt hay and standing feed, and rebuild costs inflated by contractor shortages. Fire danger periods, total fire bans and harvest bans also shape when work can legally be done on farm.
What does bushfire insurance for farms cover?
Fencing and improvements
Fencing, yards and water infrastructure, usually subject to a specific sum insured or sub-limit.
Livestock, hay and fodder
Stock killed by fire and fodder losses, generally treated as defined events with their own limits.
What affects the cost?
- Terrain and surrounding vegetation
- Fuel loads and firebreak maintenance
- Distance to brigade and water supply
- Firefighting equipment held on farm
- Fencing kilometres and material type
Worth raising on the call
- Fencing is the item most often found to be under-insured after a farm fire, because cost per kilometre is higher than most owners expect.
- Loss of standing pasture and the cost of hand-feeding afterwards is a separate question from the fencing claim.
- Fire ban and hot-works conditions can appear inside the policy wording, not only in state regulations.
Claims we are commonly asked about
Fencing lost the length of the block
A fire front runs the length of a grazing property and destroys thirty kilometres of boundary and internal fencing along with strainers, gates and grids. Fencing usually sits under a separate stated limit, and post-fire contractor rates commonly exceed the figure recorded on the schedule.
Hay shed and fodder reserve burnt
A shed holding the season's hay burns, taking both the structure and the feed reserve heading into a dry period. The building and the fodder are typically separate items, and the cost of hand-feeding surviving stock afterwards is a separate question again.
Stock lost against a fence line
Cattle caught against a fence line die in the fire and several survivors are euthanased in the following days on veterinary advice. Livestock sections commonly respond to fire as a defined event, subject to how the stock was declared and valued at the time.
Worth confirming in the wording
- Worth confirming the fencing sum insured and whether it is expressed per kilometre or as a total, since post-fire rebuild rates in Australia have risen faster than most schedules have.
- Worth confirming whether loss of standing pasture and the cost of agisting or hand-feeding surviving stock is addressed anywhere in the policy.
- Worth confirming what hot works, fire danger period and on-farm firefighting equipment requirements the wording imposes, as these can operate as conditions rather than suggestions.
Common questions
Is bushfire automatically covered on a farm policy?
Fire is generally a standard defined event under Australian farm policies, so the usual question is not whether it responds but how far the sums insured go. The gaps tend to sit in the figures for fencing, fodder and water infrastructure, and in sub-limits nobody has revisited. In very high-risk areas availability and terms can also be conditional.
Does the policy pay to feed stock after a fire burns the pasture?
Not usually as an automatic entitlement. Some policies offer an extension for loss of feed or agistment costs following an insured fire, and others do not address it at all. This is worth raising specifically, because the follow-on feed bill often ends up larger than the fencing claim.
Can I get cover if my farm is in a high bushfire risk area?
Generally yes, though terms usually tighten through higher excesses and conditions about firebreaks, vegetation clearance and on-farm firefighting units, and capacity can be limited for the most exposed buildings. Insurers assess by location, construction and mitigation rather than by district alone. A broker can approach several markets, but availability cannot be assumed.
Am I covered if a fire starts on my property and burns a neighbour's?
That is a liability question rather than a property one. Farm broadform liability commonly responds to third-party property damage arising from your farming operation, subject to the policy terms and to how the fire started. Deliberate burning outside permit conditions is generally treated differently, so permits and records matter.
General information only. Cover, limits and exclusions depend on the PDS, TMD, eligibility, underwriting and the policy terms. See farm insurance for the wider picture.
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