Raw milk is all about risk - health risk to consumers who drink it and liability risk to farmers who sell it.
Lately, it is becoming a risk that insurance companies want no part of. The result: Farms that can't get coverage or have their policies canceled are forced to either stop selling raw milk or "go bare," meaning they take on all of the liability risk themselves.
Even in states where the sale of raw milk is legal, insurance companies are under no obligation to make insurance available . . . at any price. It's an aspect of "let the market decide what it wants" they may not have considered.
Wisconsin dairies were among the first to experience this cold reality when, as Food Safety News pointed out in an October 16 article, Farm Bureau-owned Rural Mutual Insurance Co. reminded policyholders in 2012 that their coverage did not cover liability for raw milk sold for human consumption.
Insurance carriers in other states are slowly following suit, either by canceling policies for raw milk dairies or refusing to write policies at all. It's a good bet the list will grow in the wake of well-publicized sickness outbreaks traced to raw milk in Wisconsin in September, and in Utah, Idaho and California in May that included one death.
