“A lot of uninformed commentary”: Murra Warra farmer says hosting power lines doesn’t impact insurance premium

When insurance renewal time rolls around each year, grain farmer Simon Tickner - whose land is at Murra Warra, between Horsham and Warracknabeal - knows what his broker will want to discuss.

Fire risk during harvest. Machinery. Fuel loads. The dollar value of sheds, silos and equipment. And the power lines on his farm, erected in the 1970s.

Fake news: As the rollout of renewable energy infrastructure continues apace, the supposed fire risk attached to new power lines across regional Victoria is being used by some media and others to suggest farms would become more difficult or expensive to insure.

But Tickner says that’s not his experience: his insurance broker has proposed “no changes in premiums for our farming operation as a result of that infrastructure”.

“There has never been any change or additional premiums, or restrictions, or clauses around the transmission lines on our farm for the more than half-century that they've been there,” Tickner told the Brolga.

Tickner’s land makes up a portion of the 99-turbine Murra Warra Wind Farm, alongside 17 other farms. 

“In my experience talking to other farmers who have renewables and transmission on their land, everybody's been in the same boat as me,” Tickner said. “There's been no impact on their insurance as a result of having that infrastructure on their farms.”

All in a day’s work: Insurance is a routine part of farm risk management, particularly in grain growing regions where fire during harvest poses a persistent threat.

“In big production years, fires have occurred and do occur for all sorts of reasons, predominantly machinery issues,” Tickner said.

Designed to reduce risk: Energy and transmission consultant Stephanie Bashir, CEO of Nexa Advisory Group, said: “We are in an energy environment where we've got aged coal assets that are breaking down. What that means is we need to replace them.”

Bashir said new power infrastructure was critical to maintaining energy reliability and affordability, and that power lines are “designed in ways to minimise these risks”.

“Unfortunately, you can't completely eliminate them, [just] because we can't control the weather.”

Not as dangerous as others: She rejected the idea that power lines posed a higher property or insurance risk than other major infrastructure like coal plants or gas pipelines.

“Absolutely not,” Bashir said. “In fact, some of the other larger infrastructure that's being built around the states is probably more risky, and we need to put things in perspective.”

What do the insurers say? In a fact sheet addressing energy infrastructure, the body representing insurance companies said insurers generally do not have specific concerns related to a property hosting power lines or neighbouring energy assets.

“At the time of writing, the Insurance Council [of Australia] is not aware of any instances where Insurance Council members have been unable to provide insurance or have increased premiums as a result of a farm (or a neighbouring property) hosting energy infrastructure,” the document reads.

• The council noted that insurance premiums are rising nationwide, but said this was driven by broader factors including the increasing cost of more frequent natural disasters, higher replacement costs, inflation and rising business expenses, not the presence of power lines.

Uninformed commentary: For Tickner, the concern is less about insurance and more about the quality of information that the community is getting.

“I'm not expecting any issues going forward, particularly given that transmission is something that we've worked under for decades, but it does concern me a little bit that there's a lot of uninformed commentary about the increased risks,” he said.