Union Advantage

We’ve all heard the sobering statistics that farming has one of the poorest safety records in the UK. So we’re here to help improve safety on your farm.

There are a range of services to choose from including site audits, support with risk assessments and safe systems, which will help you comply with the most recent health and safety legislation.

Keep abreast of modern farming trends and changes in legislation with our training courses – all delivered in partnership with your farm to keep your workforce competent and informed.

We deliver a range of accredited training courses with the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), first aid courses with Qualsafe and agricultural competence courses with LANTRA. We can also develop a range of courses at your request, including risk assessment, manual handling, fire safety, work equipment, COSHH and farm safety awareness sessions.

The people who work for your business are a team, but they are also part of the local community. Accidental deaths in agriculture can happen, and when they do, the emotional and financial impact can take its toll on families and businesses.

Union Advantage provides cover for you, your business partners and directors against death from accidental bodily injury for £12,000, increasing by a further £12,000 each year you maintain Union Advantage with us, up to a maximum of £60,000.

We will also cover your full-time employees against death from accidental bodily injury up to £10,000. At your request, the payment will be made to the estate of the deceased.

This Union Advantage benefit excludes death from a natural illness or disease, suicide, alcohol, non-prescribed drugs, flying (except as an airline passenger) or to any person over 75 years of age. Seasonal or casual workers are not eligible for this benefit.

If you haven’t made a claim on your commercial policy in the previous period of insurance, we will waive the standard excess you would usually have to pay when making a new claim.

So, if you have insured your farm building for storm and flood, bad weather hits and a barn is damaged, at least you know you won’t have the standard £250 excess deducted from your claim amount.

This Union Advantage benefit applies to the Farm Property, Goods in Transit, Livestock Herd – Fire, Perils and Fatal Injury and Livestock in Transit sections of your policy. It does not apply to any excesses above the standard amount, including voluntary excesses, for these sections.

When insuring your property or livestock, it is your responsibility to declare a value or select a sum insured that accurately reflects the risk you want to cover. Doing so reduces the likelihood of underinsurance which occurs when the actual cost of repairing, reinstating or replacing your property is higher than the value it is insured for. However, we understand that values can fluctuate over the years. 

If you have regularly reviewed your values and sums insured, or acted on advice from a qualified valuer, but still get caught out by a sudden inflationary rise and you turn out to be underinsured, we will remove a special policy condition that usually applies to commercial policyholders to ensure you are not unfairly penalised. 

This Union Advantage benefit applies to the Farm Property, Goods in Transit, Livestock Herd – Fire, Perils and Fatal Injury and Livestock in Transit sections of your policy. You must still regularly review all values, sums insured, and load limits with your local agency and adjust these if the amount at risk has changed or if a qualified valuer has recommended you do so.

You already receive limited Moral Obligation cover as standard up to £2,500 under the Public Liability section of your commercial policy. Union Advantage extends this cover up to £5,000.

The cover provides for damage to personal effects of visitors or other property on the farm which are damaged due to certain events for which the policyholder is not legally liable.

So if a visitor’s car is hit in the yard and dented by a stone thrown up by a tractor, your Union Advantage benefit will help towards getting the car repaired, smoothing what could have been an even more difficult conversation.