Home insurance and chickens: what to know as Toronto’s pilot project takes off

Back in March, Toronto launched its UrbanHensTO pilot project, which allows people living in certain parts of the city to keep up to four chickens in their yards until March 2021.

Keeping chickens in your yard has a bunch of benefits. If you garden, their waste makes for great, high-nutrient fertilizer; if they’re laying, you’ll have access to fresh eggs; and, by raising them yourself, you’ll have the chance to develop a more nuanced understanding of where our food comes from — which is sadly rare in an age when industrial agriculture is the golden standard, creating a disconnect from the farmers, migrant workers, chemicals, and animals that toil for its sake.

But we’re not just here to extol the virtues of our feathered friends. Here at LowestRates.ca, we’re interested in the financial impact of your decisions, which is why today’s mission is to investigate one specific aspect of raising chickens on your own: how it will affect your home insurance.

In the past year, home insurers have had to respond to changes in Canadian legislation. The upcoming legalization of weed, for example, has prompted some insurers to increase rates for people who grow medical cannabis, or even cancel their policies altogether.

So now that backyard chickens — which have inspired more controversy than you might think — have officially entered Toronto’s urban makeup, we couldn’t help but wonder: might they prompt a similar response from insurance companies?

We talk to Matt Alston, co-founder of brokerage firm Surex Direct, to find out what insurers are thinking.

Insurers: are they freaking out?

“The first thing that any broker is gonna ask is the ‘why’ behind it — the purpose,” Alston says, of the decision to raise chickens. “Are you raising a couple of hens so you can have fresh eggs and use them for yourself? Or is the intention [to get] enough hens where you’re actually getting enough eggs and selling them at a farmer’s market, or trying to commercialize your produce?”

If the answer is the latter, Alston says, then home insurance won’t cut it — you may need an entirely different type of policy (e.g., a commercial one). Luckily, the City of Toronto has simplified things by making it illegal for chicken owners to sell eggs laid in their backyards.

So, what if you’re just raising chickens for your own enjoyment? Alston says that the best course of action is to talk to your broker about steps you can take — and he’s guessing they wouldn’t be difficult, or even significant, ones.

“I don’t see carriers really freaking out about somebody having two hens in their backyard [if] they don’t sell anything, they don’t have any customers,” he says. Alston adds that brokers can directly contact a customer’s insurance company, and work with them to develop provisions to protect a customer’s home. But, the changes likely wouldn’t be very big, and customers definitely would not need an entirely different policy altogether.

Also, he adds, “This isn’t going to void your home insurance, basically. That’s what I think people are worried about.”

Alston notes that many people in rural areas own chickens, or even cows and horses, and while they typically do pay higher premiums than people living in urban areas, that’s because rural homes tend to be more vulnerable to “climate events” like hailstorms or windstorms.

“You just don’t have as big of a water risk in a condo building as you do in a small town, single family home that’s 80 years old.”

Chickens, in other words, have very little to do with it.

Will your rate change?

If it does — and there’s a chance that it won’t — it definitely won’t be by much.

“What drives price is risk,” Alston explains. “So if it’s not a big red flag for somebody to have a hobby farm, [if] somebody has a small yard just in Toronto and they have two chickens, that risk is going to be the same.”

What about insurance for the chickens themselves?

There’s protecting your home on the one hand, but then there’s protecting your chickens.

There are predators in rural Ontario, but they’re definitely of a different sort than you’ll find in a city like Toronto. And if your chickens are attacked or get sick, home insurance won’t cover their medical bills — just like it won’t if your dog isn’t feeling well.

But, you know what will? Pet insurance.

“Pet insurance is very, very popular in Canada,” Alston attests. He adds that if you’re looking for insurance to cover chickens, it’s likely that you’ll have to find an entirely separate policy from the one that covers your other pets.