31st January 2017
A Surprise of the Expensive Kind
Imagine my surprise when I received a call from my insurance broker this month to say that if I was going to keep my bees my current home insurer did not want to offer me the opportunity to renew my insurance with them. When I politely inquired why? She explained that when the jarrah tree was removed from the roof of our home. Some of the apiarists and S.E.S were stung badly by bees. I tried to explain that my beehives were some distance from the house and that the tree in question was an 800 year old jarrah with a visible wild bees nest in it. Essentially people got stung because the apiarists threw a live bee hive into a mulcher!
We did not think to warn them because when we left the property we thought the plan was for us to sort out the tree after they got it off the roof and to be honest, we were still in shock.
My broker went on to explain she had found me a new insurer but that they would require me to take out a separate public liability insurance for the bees. With me selling my honey for $10 a kilo I will have to sell over 80 kilograms of honey before I even make enough to cover the insurance, let alone all of my other expenses - this really really sucks.