Fellas,

I've got a 50 year old barn that is built with an all-steel frame and a corrugated steel roof. There's no insulation and no wood in it, and it has a concrete foundation.

The building and the roof are in good shape. The corrugated steel is from back when they used 24-gauge 7/8" high corrugations and a big man can walk on it without risk of bending it or falling through.

Anyway, I'd like to lease it to a guy for the storage of baled hay and I contacted Texas Farm Bureau about getting a property insurance policy, mainly to cover the risk of a hay fire destroying the place.

They told me that the roof was 'too old' and they couldn't insure it.

Is that standard operating procedure these days for a steel barn? If so, how 'new' does a steel barn roof have to be to get insurance? I know they're getting particular on the age of shingle roofs for houses due to hail damage claims, but hail won't ever damage this roof.

If not, do you have any recommendations for somebody else? I'm in McLennan County and the building is in the city limits with a real fire department. The Texas Farm Bureau agent I contacted is one county over and is the agent for the guy who wants to lease the building.

Thanks.

Good luck. 2 problems one your storing hay in it, so they likely won't cover fire. 2nd with that age the actual cash value of the materials has depreciated out and is considered past its lifespan even if it's still functional. In the insurance world, when the roof turned 25, you should've replaced it. If it gets damaged, it's because it was 50 years old.

I don't think it will be long before they just stop insuring roofing altogether. The hail storms have started a cycle of roofers helping homeowners beat deductibles and as the pricing in their exactimate system goes up with each round of hail storms the roofers are making it outrun inflation. I have seen this as being a builder I get non storm pricing and then I have seen the storm pricing offered by the same company for the roof on my house.

The only way I see to fix it is get rid of deductibles completely. Require homeowners to get 3 competitive bids for the work and require that lowest bid gets the work. You'll see a race to the bottom then it will level up with the bottom feeders going broke. They should still track pricing through exactimate but only to be able to evaluate situations that are above average cost.

Ok off my soap box. Make education private and make insurance illegal except for catastrophic. Self reliance and charity will become values again. What else needs fixing around here? Rant Over.

Is it time for the first Texags Barn Raisin?

Yeah, poster above is correct. Look to see what the appraisal district has on it. Old corrugated hay barn = a few thousand dollars. I have never heard of anyone insuring an old barn like that, either.

My TXFB does not cover many of our outbuildings including barns, shops, etc for the reasons you cited of age, regardless of metal construction. So yeah, pretty standard for them.

I think I did find a company once, but the amount they wanted for it and the value they assigned to my barn was such that I'd be hard pressed not to burn the damn thing down myself and then rebuild it twice as nice. Insurance is horse crap.

The way I do it is I pick the highest deductible I can and compare that to acceptable risk.

I like to treat insurance as a 'catastrophic' protection. I don't have insurance in case my roof gets a hail dent on it. I have insurance in case my stuff burns to the ground.

To me, I am OK paying paying cash for my roof. I am NOT ok with having to pay cash to rebuild my house from the ground up. That means I have a high deductible, which isn't great for a roof, but it's a steal for a rebuild.

You will need to figure your level of risk for your personal needs/finances.

Carriers are starting to switch to 3% or even 5% deductibles for wind and hail to slow the bleeding. The insurance industry is like the casino, except over the past 20 years, the house is losing it's ass.

Guys, thanks for all your input here. It's much appreciated.

I'm glad I'm not being singled out. The crazy thing is I don't give a damn about having 'wind/hail' protection with this policy (I've been self-insured on that for years), but that's what it sounds like the insurance companies are worried about.

I may take a look at 'Plan B', which is making sure fire damage is covered under the tenant's 'damage to rented premises' portion of their liability insurance policy.

I mean, it's a functional good sized barn, even if it's old. I'd have some fairly serious demolition and haul-off charges if it were badly damaged, apart from losing a barn.

I think that's it. Get them to give you a general liability insurance certificate that includes property damage. Also have them list you as an additional insured on the policy.

I have to do it all the time when building a home.

I wanted to just get fire, theft and liability on my homeowners policy, insurance company wouldn't write the policy because of the county I live in.