Garden Insurance

With support from Grow Pittsburgh, NexTier Insurance has started a group liability insurance policy for community gardeners. By pooling risk among several gardens, NexTier is able to keep the costs extremely low for each individual garden to sign on. Presently, the group policy is only available for community food gardens participating in the City of Pittsburgh’s Adopt-A-Lot Program. There is a goal for establishing another group policy for non-city-owned land in the future. Liability insurance is often required to access land — such as the vacant lots owned by the City of Pittsburgh — or to participate in certain programming A Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance policy is the first line of defense against many common claims (such as bodily injury or property damage) that could occur in a community garden or on other sites included in the policy. It enables an organization to continue operations while it faces real or fraudulent claims of certain types of negligence or wrongdoing.

Communities who struggle with the burden of the requirements to work on gardens open to residents may be able to replicate a similar model to increase capacity in high vacancy areas.