“The impact of such stupid, silly little things when you’re running a big farming operation solo is huge.”
James and Katherine Turner and their 10-year-old triplets sharemilk near Whenuakite on the Coromandel Peninsula.
It’s a beautiful part of the country close to many beaches. James didn’t expect a summer holiday cricket game with his three children could limit what he could do on farm to the extent that it did.
“I bent my right toe out of the ball joint after it got caught in the long tangly, Kahkuia grass that you see at the beach,” says James.
“I thought it might come right by itself but it didn’t. If it’d been a clean break it might have been better but the doctor said something else was going on. There have been a few specialist appointments since then.”
Drought, Covid-19 and a sore toe
James’ toe injury turned out to be quite debilitating. Whatever James had done led to other problems as well, including bending over being a struggle.
“I couldn’t walk around the milking platform and Katherine had to learn to drive the tractor. Actually poor Katherine did a lot of work on the farm.”
With just the two of them on farm, it’s been challenging. Add in a severe drought and the Covid-19 lockdown period, and you can appreciate why the $14,000 the Turners have received under their insurance cover is “just so good.”
Not the first accident…
The Turners took out insurance cover for themselves three years earlier when they first moved to the Coromandel to start sharemilking and spoke with FMG.
Just over six months after taking out the cover James needed labour replacement to help out during calving.
“A calf had become stuck in a cow and I was elbow deep trying to release it when she went down,” says James.
“We were right in the middle of calving too and I’d injured my shoulder so it was great that our cover meant we could pay someone to get us through.”
James rates the cover: “The impact of such stupid, silly little things when you’re running a big farming operation solo, is huge.”
James’ insurance cover
- Level Term Life cover
- Yearly Renewable Life cover
- Rural Key Person cover
