Check your state Farm Bureau. Most offer insurance. Here, you don't have to actually farm to be a member, although I do. Don't know about WA.

BTW, just to be sure, I am NOT talking about State Farm Insurance Company.

I have never purchased insurance that wasn't for a rural home so I don't really have comparison but it doesn't seem expensive to me. We actually have a farm.

We have built a new home on the same property and are razing the old house- our old home was minimally insured - it really didn't have a lot of value. I was afraid our insurance would go up... it was very minimal - I think about 100/year. Considering our replacement value on the new house is about 7 times what we had on the old house, I think it's a pretty good deal.

Lots of companies write farm policies. We actually do use State Farm. We are Farm Bureau members and they offer policies in our state through Nationwide.

Good Luck.

two

I ran into a similar situation - and our fire dept is only 3 miles away. I suggest looking into ANPAC which is the company I went with. I don't know if they cover your area. They specialize in insuring farm & rural properties - and that is the kind of company you need. I tried going through USAA since I have been a member for over 25 years, but their home insurance (at that time) was outrageous (over 3 times what I am paying now per year). I believe USAA is more competitive now, but still higher than ANPAC.

The ANPAC policy worked great. We first signed up for a 1 year builders risk insurance policy which then converted into the homeowner policy. During construction, the annual rate was a few hundred dollars more per year but that is to cover theft and damages during construction. We went with a $5K deductable because we were more concerned about fire and someone getting injured - then we were about theft. Also - we got $1M liability coverage for a small annual rate - and I have kept that even after the house was done. It provides added protection if someone you hire get's hurt on your property.

The other thing you can do is to add fire protection into the design of your home. Sprinkler systems have come way down in price due to advances in flexible pipe. You might have to put in a beefier well pump, and perhaps even a water storage tank - but those measures could help lower the cost of insurance significantly.

When you do find a company, ask them what steps you can take to lower the premium, and what the savings would be for each one. Things like thicker roofing shingles, alarm systems, fire resistant building materials, alarm system etc. Some might be worth doing, others might not be.

Best of luck!

i technically live in a rural area but the rural water service makes sure they put hydrants near any homes in the service area. there are actually places where you see a hydrant every couple thousand feet along the road and NO houses! just empty fields.

anyway, when i got my insurance the agent quoted me 2 prices, 2300.00 a year if no hydrant close and 1050 if one within 1000 ft. the closest hydrant was 1250 ft away from me, but he went ahead and gave me teh fire discount! 6 months later the water company put a hydrant right across the street from me, so now i am truly within the protection zone.

another thing that has a big effect is the RATING of your local volunteer fire dept. if they are a bunch of clowns with poor response times and no training, then the rating goes thru the roof and insurance costs reflect it. if they are guys (and gals) who take it seriously and train well and keep down the response times, then of course rates are lower.

BTW, the closest fire station to me is 4 miles but it is city and they cannot serve my property. the county volunteer FD station is 5 miles. my wife's grandmother is served by the same station and it is 10 miles to her house.

We didn't build our home but live quite a long ways from a fire hydrant. I've always thought our homeowners insurance was very reasonable (ANPAC) and feel even moreso now that we have a large claim, but that is for hail. (They've been very, very good to us).

In the fifteen years we have been in this rural neighborhood we have had two houses burn. One was a "real" fire and the other was set as training for new firemen. For the "real" fire three different firefighting communities responded with tanker trucks. The home was a total loss but not because of the firefighters or their proximity to water. Something ignited in the garage and the fire spread quickly. The response time was awesome!

How high are your premiums? We live out in the country about 5-6 miles from the fire department. 3 really nice houses in our area have burned down this summer (might be an arsonist in the area) and all were fully engulfed in flames by the time the fire department arrived and were total losses. From these fires we have learned that fires grow exponentially and the national guideline for the optimal fire department response time (i.e. time from the time the fire dept receives the call until it arrives on the scene) for a structural fire is 6 minutes or less (although most fire dept aim for a response time of less than 5 minutes). After 6 minutes, the odds that the structural fire will grow beyond control are very high. In calculating response time for a professional fire dept, they allow 1 minute for the call, 1 minute for the fire fighters to leave the building (a volunteer fire dept would take more than 1 minute) and the rest is travel time. In a rural area, you also have increased response time because of the need for tanker trucks. Where we live, we have a professional fire dept but there is still no way that the fire dept will cover the 5 + miles between in the station and our house in 4 minutes and our home owners premiums are higher, but I don't think they are outrageous, because it is very unlikely that firefighters would get to our house before the fire was out of control. We know one of the families whose house burned down the summer and their house was fully engulfed in less than 10 minutes--they were home when the fire started and were just thankful that they all got out unhurt and that they had really good homeowner's insurance. The insurance may be expensive, but you will be happy that you have it if you need it. Be sure to compare coverage when you shop around for a lower priced policy. Good luck.

Whatever extra we pay for our farm policy above and beyond what it would cost if we were within the city limits is more than made up for by our markedly lower taxes.

No complaints here.