Income Protection for Farmers

Farming is the only job here where being injured creates work rather than simply stopping it.

Animals have to be fed and milked whether you are in hospital or not. A crop has a window. A farm does not close for six weeks while a shoulder heals, so somebody has to be paid to do what you were doing, out of money that is no longer coming in.

Income protection pays a monthly amount while you cannot work, and on a farm that money frequently goes straight back out to relief staff.

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The short answer

Farming has the highest fatal injury rate of any occupation on this site, and the particular problem is that the work does not stop when you do: livestock still need feeding and a harvest does not wait. A farmer who is injured usually has to pay somebody to do the job as well as losing their own income. Income protection replaces a monthly amount while you cannot work.

What actually stops you working

Machinery incidents, including PTO shafts, balers and anything with a moving part
Being struck or crushed by livestock, particularly cattle at handling and calving
Falls from height, from trailers, bale stacks and farm buildings
Being struck by moving vehicles, which is a leading cause of farm fatalities
Hand-arm vibration and hearing loss from decades of machinery use
Respiratory disease from grain dust, mouldy hay and slurry gases

Sick pay, if you get any

Nothing for a farmer or a self-employed contractor, and employed farm workers usually have statutory sick pay only. The specific issue is that income and cost move in opposite directions: not working does not reduce the farm's labour requirement, it simply transfers it to somebody who has to be paid.

Why the definition of incapacity decides it

Farming is as physical as any job here and has almost no sedentary version at the scale most farms operate. Someone with a back or shoulder injury can do office work and cannot handle cattle, climb into a cab or lift feed. An any occupation definition will find them capable; an own occupation definition asks whether they can farm, which is the only relevant question when the farm is the income.

The Work Does Not Stop When You Do

This is what makes farming different from every other job on this site, and it changes how much cover is needed rather than whether any is.

A self-employed plumber who is injured stops working and stops earning, and that is the whole of the problem. A dairy farmer who is injured stops earning and the cows still need milking twice a day. Somebody has to do it, and that somebody has to be paid, out of an income that is not arriving. The cost of being off is therefore the lost income plus the cost of replacing yourself.

So the benefit should be worked out from both: what the household needs and what relief labour or contracting actually costs on your farm. That is usually a bigger figure than people first suggest, and it is better established before a claim than during one.

Help Is A Long Way Away

Farming combines serious hazards with isolation, and the combination makes outcomes worse than the same accident elsewhere.

Much of the work is done alone, in a field or a building out of sight and sometimes out of signal. An incident that would be survivable with immediate help is not always survivable an hour later, and that is reflected in the fact that agriculture carries one of the highest fatal injury rates of any industry in the country.

That is a reason to arrange life cover early and properly rather than treating it as something to sort out later, and to be realistic when deciding the sum assured about what the family would actually need.

If you stop

Nothing waits. Stock still need feeding twice a day, cows still need milking, and a harvest window closes whether anybody is fit or not. In practice family members take it on, relief staff are hired, or contractors are brought in, and all three cost money the farm is no longer earning.

The Farm Is An Asset Nobody Can Easily Realise

Farming families are often asset rich and cash poor, and that combination is exactly what makes life cover important rather than unnecessary.

The land may be worth a great deal and it cannot be sold quickly, may be tenanted, and is frequently the thing the next generation is supposed to inherit and continue. Meanwhile there are borrowings against it, and inheritance tax reliefs that depend on how the business is structured and what happens next.

Life cover here is often less about replacing income and more about providing liquidity: cash that lets a family keep the farm rather than sell part of it to settle debts or tax. That is worth working through properly with your accountant as well as with us.

A Lump Sum Pays For Somebody To Run The Farm

Of all the jobs on this site, farming is the one where capital most directly keeps the business alive.

A serious diagnosis means months of treatment during which the farm still has to operate. A lump sum pays a farm manager or relief staff for a year, which is the difference between a business that continues and one that is sold or let because nobody could run it.

That is a genuinely different purpose from replacing a wage, and on a farm it may be the more important of the two covers. It is worth looking at what a sum large enough to fund a year of relief labour would actually cost.

Common questions

Why do farmers need income protection if they own the farm?+

Because owning the farm does not pay the bills when you cannot work it, and the work does not stop. Stock still need feeding, cows still need milking and a harvest window still closes, so somebody has to be paid to do what you were doing out of money that is no longer coming in. The cost of being off is the lost income plus the cost of replacing yourself.

How much cover does a farmer need?+

Usually more than a straight income replacement, because of that double effect. Work out what the household needs and what relief labour or contracting actually costs on your farm, and size the benefit against both. Self-employed farm income also varies year to year and is normally evidenced from accounts, so it is worth discussing before you apply rather than at claim.

Is farming treated as high risk?+

It is rated as the physical, machinery-heavy occupation it is, and insurers differ in how they handle livestock and arable work. That variation is the reason to go through a broker rather than one provider. What we cannot do is promise acceptance or say in advance where a particular insurer will place agricultural work.

What about the farm itself if something happens to me?+

That is usually a life cover question rather than an income protection one, and it is about liquidity. Land can be valuable and very hard to realise quickly, there are often borrowings against it, and inheritance tax reliefs depend on structure. Life cover can provide the cash that lets a family keep the farm rather than sell part of it, which is worth working through with your accountant as well as with us.

Does it cover respiratory problems from grain or slurry?+

Income protection responds to whether you can work rather than to a particular diagnosis, so a respiratory condition that stops you farming would be treated like any other medical cause. Grain dust, mouldy hay and slurry gases are recognised risks in agriculture. As with any health matter, declare anything existing accurately at application, because that is what decides whether a later claim is straightforward.

Cover that often goes with this

The gaps we most often find sitting next to this one.