My training and experience would not lead me to believe that the things constructed on neighbouring properties by an adjoining business could lead to an increase in liability for the first business.

One person remarks that the conversation with a broker was "depressing". Insurance premiums "could" increase by large amounts.

Well, a broker would hardly be likely to say that premiums might drop, when their livelihood depends on premiums increasing!

And no doubt it is possible to find someone to support a point of view by making such statements.

The writer (and the broker?) also seem to have confused - or conflated - the need for fire insurance with the need for public liability insurance. They are different risks.

If you have a business next to a high-risk activity, such as a pine plantation, you might expect that premiums for fire cover for your possessions might be higher than elsewhere.

As more than 40 per cent of Oberon Shire is covered by forest and plantations, one might reasonably expect that most parts of the shire would indeed attract a higher premium for fire insurance, particularly for a landowner like a farmer.

It's hard to see that a wind turbine or two would increase the risk.

It's true that, like houses, they "sometimes" catch alight. It's also true that it is now so infrequent as to attract attention all round the world when and if it happens.

It would also be an unwise broker who might attempt to do the underwriter's job and quantify any possible increase in costs, especially given the risk that already exists in the plantations.

On the other hand, it's not possible to see how the presence of wind or solar farms might increase an adjoining landowner's public liability.

They are not liable for things done by their neighbours!

If the landowner, through negligence, causes a fire on a hot, dry day with high winds, and the fire travels, say, 50 kilometres overnight, then no amount of PI insurance would cover the cost, regardless of whether there are pine plantations, people, fences, sheep, cattle, houses- or wind towers- in the path of the fire.

And, of course, if they have not been negligent, then the PI insurer will defend them, rather than pay any claim.

So to confuse the ideas of fire risk to your own possessions and public liability risk is misleading, and probably disingenuous, in the case of agents and brokers who are supposed to have some training and knowledge of their subject.

I also find it interesting that I spoke to two separate insurances brokerages yesterday about these matters, and both of them were as intrigued as I was by the ideas put forward.

Neither of them was aware of any increased risk to be borne, or paid for, by adjoining landholders near renewable energy farms.

Perhaps the writers need to seek a broader range of "advice".

There is no such thing as a "standard" public liability policy, for farming or any other business.

Over 30 years ago, the advice given to all of the insurance representatives that I knew was not to advise a client how much public liability cover was "enough", otherwise we could be liable if it wasn't "enough".

The advice was to tell the client always to buy as much as they could afford. I doubt that that advice has changed!