Solar Panel Insurance for Farm Buildings: What Insurers Ask For (2026)

When to tell the insurer: before the quote is accepted

The advice in Farmers Weekly's guide to insurance for farm renewable projects, by Suzie Horne (12 July 2024), is to consult your broker in the planning stage and well before any quotes to supply or install equipment are accepted. The reason is practical: early consultation lets the insurer ask for risk-reduction modifications, and those modifications can determine whether cover is approved at all. The same article reports that cover generally needs to be arranged with the existing farm or house insurer rather than a specialist, and that insurers' caution stems from fire claims in which a renewable installation destroyed the surrounding buildings. Its risk advice runs to fire-retardant materials, strict documentation of servicing within warranty timeframes, and not parking vehicles against the installation.

RC62, the Joint Code of Practice for fire safety with PV installations published in 2023 by the Fire Protection Association with RISCAuthority, MCS and Solar Energy UK, says the same thing from the insurers' side: discuss the project with the current or prospective building or site property insurer, whose requirements may range from organisational policy to knowledge of the building, its contents and the insurable value, and determine ownership of the building and of the PV system, because they may not be the same party.

What NFU Mutual's PV programme asks for

NFU Mutual publishes a risk-management programme for photovoltaic roof-mounted systems among its loss-prevention guidance. Its grid references predate the current G98 and G99 connection rules, but the building, electrical, housekeeping and fire requirements are the ones a farm broker still works from. In summary it asks for:

• Structure. A qualified structural engineer commissioned to confirm the roof can bear the additional weight, including snow load; written confirmation retained; recommended remedial work completed first. Lightweight structures are unlikely to bear the weight and alternative locations should be sought. What the module and racking weigh, and how the 15% test in Approved Document A applies, is in solar panel weight and roof loading on farm buildings.
• Installation. Compliance with the MCS installation standard with sufficient under-ventilation; all roof penetrations durably sealed with proprietary products, never mastic; external metalwork designed for the static and wind loads, fixed into structural members and corrosion-protected for a life to first maintenance of at least twenty years, for example stainless steel to grade 304 or 316.
• Electrical. Installation and maintenance by a competent person, ideally a contractor recognised by NICEIC, SELECT or a similar UKAS-accredited body; on commercial premises, a fixed-wiring inspection every five years; surge protection; consideration of lightning protection to BS EN 62305, with the inverter correctly earthed; security where panels are reachable from ground level.
• Housekeeping. The inverter housing acceptably ventilated; combustible materials, flammable liquids and general plant kept away from it. Nests and droppings under the array belong in the same routine; the options and the law on active nests are in bird proofing solar panels on farm buildings.
• Maintenance. Inspection and servicing to the manufacturer's recommendations by an approved engineer, with records kept and work done under a permit-to-work system.
• Fire. For large commercial installations, a fire alarm to BS 5839-1 maintained by a certificated company, with smoke or heat detectors in the inverter housing and the alarm arranged to isolate the equipment automatically; the inverter and grid connection housed in or fixed to non-combustible construction; regular thermographic inspection; and a documented fire risk assessment under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

Each of those is a question the installer should be able to answer on the drawing. The fire items are explained clause by clause on solar panel fire risk on farm buildings.

What RC62 says insurers expect at procurement

Because RC62 was written through RISCAuthority, a group of UK insurers, its procurement section is the clearest statement of what underwriters want to see in the contractor. It recommends that the installer should, as a minimum, hold MCS certification in PV systems and BS EN ISO 9001:2015; be a registered member of a Safety Schemes in Procurement organisation such as Acclaim or CHAS; hold the right certification and competence for DC, low-voltage AC and, where relevant, high-voltage systems; and hold appropriate insurance including professional indemnity to cover the project. It also asks the client to review the contractor's relevant experience and references, the key staff's competence under CDM 2015, the company's finances and its subcontractors, since the highest-risk work is often subcontracted, and to confirm that the PV modules are MCS certified. The checking routine is set out on agricultural solar panel installers.

Two design expectations follow. The system should be designed for a life of 30 to 35 years, with equipment rated for that life rather than the warranty period alone, and it should sit on a non-combustible roof. The code also asks for a business continuity view: an emergency plan covering fire and other loss scenarios, rehearsed with an annual tabletop exercise, and particular care where a system runs unattended overnight and at weekends, which describes most farm buildings.

The non-fire risks an insurer prices

Storm. RC62 asks for a one-in-a-hundred-year weather event impact assessment at design, notes that systems are designed to accommodate 54 m/s winds but higher speeds have been recorded at exposed, higher-altitude UK locations, and says roofs should be inspected after any extreme weather event. Snow and ice trapped between panels and roof add weight where there was none before.

Theft and vandalism. A PV installation carries a notable amount of copper and aluminium, and the code says there is an expectation of security measures proportionate to that risk, with reported vandalism by catapult and air rifle; the risk is lower where the array is not visible from the ground. For ground-mounted systems it refers to the RISCAuthority solar farm security guide.

Business interruption. Where the array supplies a parlour or a cold store, the loss is not the panels but the week without them. Whether the farm policy's business-interruption section follows a PV loss is a question to ask in the renewal call, with the generation figures to hand.

Ownership models: leases, power purchase agreements and tenanted buildings

RC62 notes that PV systems may be owned by a party separate from the building owner, landowner or tenant, and requires such installations to follow the same risk controls as owner-operated ones. The insurance consequence is that two policies may meet on one roof: the building owner's and the system owner's. Who covers the plant, who covers the building, who carries the business-interruption risk and who pays for a roof repair that needs the array lifted must be written into the lease or power purchase agreement, and each insurer should know the other exists. On a tenanted holding the landlord's consent and the landlord's insurer come first; where the building is listed or inside the curtilage of a listed farmhouse, the planning route changes too, which is set out on planning permission for solar on farm buildings.

The documents to hold

1. The structural engineer's report and written confirmation of completion of any remedial work.
2. The G99 acceptance letter from the distribution network operator, with any export limit.
3. The commissioning test certificate and documentation to BS EN 62446-1:2016, and the electrical installation certificate to BS 7671.
4. The MCS certificate, where the array is within the scheme's 50 kW scope.
5. The fire risk assessment, reviewed after installation, and any DSEAR assessment for grain or chemical stores.
6. The maintenance contract, the annual inspection reports, thermographic survey reports and the records of insulation-resistance and string-resistance tests.
7. The warranty documents for modules, inverters and workmanship, with their registration confirmations; what each layer covers is on solar panel warranty.
8. Evidence of the fire-service provisions: the information pack, the "PV on the roof" sign and the fire-service switch test record.

The figures on this page and where they come from

Before the renewal call

Have the array's capacity, the ownership position, the installer's registrations and the documents above in front of you, and ask four questions: whether the PV plant is covered as part of the buildings sum insured or needs its own item; whether business interruption follows a PV loss; what inspection and alarm conditions attach to the cover; and what the insurer wants to see before the array is energised rather than after. For the cost of the system you are insuring, from official data rather than quotes, see solar panels for farm buildings cost; for the head-term guide, solar panels for farm buildings; and for a utility-scale ground-mounted site, which is a different policy altogether, solar farm insurance.