Things to consider at lambing time

The 2025 lambing season is well and truly upon us. It’s an exciting, but stressful and demanding time for your farming clients. Extended working hours, mortality, and the impact of the weather on newborns can all take their toll.

While your clients are busy preparing the farm and livestock for this intense period, you can play a crucial part in supporting their insurance and risk management needs to ensure their investment is adequately protected.

Employee numbers

Many farms hire additional people to help cope with the increased workload and the fast-paced environment over lambing season. Your clients may incorrectly assume that because employees are temporary, or supporting them on a volunteer basis, it’s not necessary to amend their cover. It’s worthwhile reminding them that they are legally obliged to have Employers’ Liability insurance in place when managing one or more employees.

Flock values

With a bit of luck, clients will return a strong lambing percentage, and in a short period, flock numbers can triple. Work with your clients to ensure their cover across Farm Contents and Business Interruption sections is adequate for their needs.

It may be worthwhile advising your clients of the benefits of insuring their flock to cover the maximum value, which will be the value at the point the lamb is sold. This can be covered as a single flock value under the livestock cover, or the recommended method of splitting the flock between breeding stock under the livestock cover, and the lambs for sale under a business interruption revenue cover.  

Not insuring for the full value could lead to your client’s claim being proportionally reduced.

Fire risks

Keeping orphaned lambs warm is key to their survival. Heat lamps and bedding can however pose a significantly increased risk of fire, with potentially devastating losses.

We sometimes see heartbreaking claims from farmers, where the lambing sheds have caught fire, and all animals were lost. The cause can often be due to heat lamps being installed above straw which is highly flammable. It may be worth advising your clients to ensure they securely fix the heat lamps to the solid fabric of the building with a metal chain or similar. 

Lamps should be securely installed, at a height they cannot be tampered with by either lambs or adult livestock, and as far as practicable from combustible materials.

Visitors

Whether welcomed or not, lambing season is a time of heightened public interest in farming activity. If your farming client welcomes members of the public to meet new arrivals, Public Liability Insurance should  be in place.

To protect against risk of infection from zoonotic  diseases, including things like Orf, Campylobacteriosis, Salmonellosis, Listeriosis, Cryptosporidiosi and Ringworm, provision should be made for hand washing, and good hygiene practices should be observed. Pregnant women are at particular risk and should be advised to stay away from animals that are giving birth, have recently given birth or aborted. 

Tiredness

Its important for clients to look after themselves, and others during this period. Long hours, combined with busy farmyards can result in accidents, and safe working practices should be observed. It can also be an emotionally draining period. We’d encourage all clients to ensure they are eating and sleeping well and trying to take regular breaks.

Risk management support

Given the tiredness and stressful challenges that farmers face at this time of year, having an effective risk management system in place that is easy to use, can help to ease the burden and ensure robust Health and Safety practices are in place.

At Geo we are proud to partner with Merit Advantage, who have designed app-based risk management tools specifically for the farming community.

Available at the touch of a button from a mobile phone, these apps can:

• Document and manage Health and Safety systems and policies
• Manage machinery and building checks, servicing and inspections
• Proactively send reminders to undertake key risk management tasks
• Save time and money through informed decision making
• And much more!

Clients who sign up to the Merit Advantage H&S or MeritAgCheck Premium app can benefit from a discount on their policy with Geo. Speak to our team to find out more.