The 9,000 square-foot honey house and storage building that Paul Gregory and his brother Lee and their families owned as part of a farm and forage seed business near Fisher Branch, Man., burned to the ground July 15, 2008.
Today, they consider themselves lucky.
While the metal-clad building and all its contents were destroyed, nobody was hurt.
And there s more good news the building was fully insured.
But it all too easily might have been different if
the Gregorys hadn t happened to have been working on a succession plan to divide their farm and their seed business, Interlake Forage Seeds Ltd.
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The firm they had hired before the fire to provide independent, third-party asset evaluations said the 90 by 100 foot honey house they had built in 2000 was undervalued. It had cost around $120,000 to build and was insured for $262,000. According to the evaluators it was worth closer to $400,000.
That revelation prompted the Gregorys to find a new insurance company with more experience covering seed businesses and honey farms.
I d ask your insurer if they are insuring other businesses like yours, Paul Gregory says when asked for his advice to other farmers. It s real easy to put your head in the sand and say we ll never have a fire and this should be enough (coverage).
More insurance coverage means paying higher premiums, but the extra cost isn t that painful, Gregory says.
