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Milk production stopped abruptly last Sept. 22 at a northeast Ohio dairy when a fire left the milk parlor unusable and over 1,000 cows displaced.

Immediately, Farm Bureau and the entire ag community jumped in to help—finding multiple means of transport and places for the herd to go. Yet, beyond the immediate tasks of dealing with damage to the milking facilities and much of the herd’s housing, the family faced the loss of income from milk while their business, Comp Dairy, was out of operation.
Today, the family is still in the process of rebuilding the operation, said Jerry Comp, an Ashtabula County Farm Bureau member who runs the farm with his son, Brice.

“I’m not all done, but I’ve made it through the worst of it,” Comp said. “I got very lucky.”

Right insurance coverage is key

He noted that it was fortunate the fire happened when it did, and not a few years ago, before he updated the farm’s insurance coverage with Ohio Farm Bureau’s Heritage Partner Nationwide.

To set up coverage for the farm, Comp worked with Mark Muir, an agent with the Mark Bruns Agency, which is a Farm Bureau Select Partner. Muir, who is a farmer and Farm Bureau member himself, said it helps to have an agent who understands agriculture.

“I understand the risks of what might go wrong,” Muir said.

County Farm Bureau boards can designate agencies as Select Partners to help members choose agents that understand their needs, said Mandy Orahood, organization director for Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake and Trumbull counties.

“They’re not just agents here to collect a premium. They are people who genuinely care about our members and the ag community,” she said.

When he helps farmers set up coverage for their farms, Muir works with them to think through the value of everything on their farms and consider what it would take to get back up and running if a disaster happened.

The Comps carried coverage on their facilities and livestock as well as feed and other supplies. For instance, Muir explained, they were reimbursed for the loss of some high-moisture corn in a bunk silo that spoiled after the fire.

They also had coverage for disruption of farming operations (sometimes also called business income coverage). That was important for the farm’s recovery because it helped replace the income they lost when they were not selling milk.

Mark Whalen, the agribusiness adjuster with Nationwide who worked on the Comp Dairy claim, said the disruption of farming operations coverage goes beyond rebuilding facilities.

“You can always rebuild property—that’s your basic property claim,” he said, noting that the bigger problem farmers face is finding a way to make money and keep their farming operations going all while they’re trying to rebuild. “It was really important in this particular case that the insured was able to find other places for his cows to go on other farms so that other dairies could milk them.”

The dairy cows were sent to 11 other dairies, nine in northern Ohio and two in Pennsylvania. Those farms kept the revenue from the milk the cows produced to compensate for the costs of keeping and milking the cows.

The facilities for dry cows and young stock were not affected by the fire, so those animals remained on the farm. But in the weeks after the fire, around 70 freshening heifers had to be moved off the farm so they could be milked. Once the temporary milking facilities were in place, the Comps were able to keep cows on the farm after they had their calves.

“We started with three cows,” Comp said. “It was a joke watching us milk three cows, but it was a big thing to us.”

The Comp Dairy fire caused the roof to collapse on the milking parlor and destroyed the milk tanks and other facilities that were connected to the parlor, Comp said. After clearing away the debris, they put up a temporary roof, installed temporary tanks and got a vacuum pump hooked up to be able to start milking again.

“To make up for the loss of milk income, Nationwide’s forensic accountants worked with the Comps’ accountant to look at historical production records, compared to their actual production during the rebuild process Whalen explained. “They were able to put together a schedule of how much money they were losing each month, and we reimbursed them for that.”

Identifying risks

For large farms, Nationwide does quarterly inspections to help farmers identify risks before they become losses, Muir explained. Smaller farms can request inspections by contacting their agents. It helps to plan ahead when a policy is up for renewal, Muir added. He suggests talking with your agent about six weeks before the renewal date.

Updated property coverage and coverage for disruption of farming operations were both important in recovering from the fire. Farmers are always busy, so it can be hard to keep insurance policies updated, Comp said.

“Making sure you have a good insurance policy is critical, too,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure your policy is going to cover what you need.”

As they continued to work on rebuilding, the Comps gradually brought groups of cows home over the winter and spring. By late April of this year, the herd was home, Comp said. “It was a sigh of relief.”

In mid-July, the Comps had 1,120 cows going through their rebuilt parlor, and Comp said he feels lucky to have the herd back and grateful for the support of his community.

“The community helped me immensely,” he noted.

KEY POINTS

• Farmers should review their insurance coverage often.
• Working with an agent with ag knowledge is essential.
• Coverage for disruption of farming operations was important in recovering from the fire.

WHAT’S NEXT
Do you have enough insurance to cover a catastrophic event, such as a fire, on your farm? Contact your insurance agent or an Ohio Farm Bureau Select Partner to find out.

Photos submitted by Comp Dairy