Northwest courses live with water. Most of the year, the problem is too much of it.
Saturated fairways that delay openings. Drainage systems working overtime. Windstorms dropping limbs and whole trees across greens. Bunkers washing out after a week of hard rain. None of it is dramatic, which is exactly why it gets underweighted at renewal. The steady losses can quietly add up.
If you operate a course in Oregon, Washington, or Idaho, your renewal conversation should sound different from one happening in Arizona. Here's what I'd put on the table:
Storm and water damage may not be covered – look at the details. Playing surfaces need explicit coverage solutions with real limits, because a winter of washouts and a spring windstorm can damage a dozen holes before your season even starts. Tree removal after a storm is its own cost, and it may be limited. Drainage matters beyond your property line too: Runoff onto neighboring homes has a way of turning into liability claims.
And ask where flood coverage sits, because it may not be in your standard property policy. It can be a separate solution entirely, and courses along rivers and low ground may find that out at the worst time.
Here's the twist for a rainy region: Some of the Northwest's worst recent course seasons came from too little water. In 2015, nearly the entire region hit historic drought, and eastern Oregon and Idaho spent multiple years dry. Spokane hit the most severe federal drought classification in its history, and one local course cut water use by more than half to keep operating.
While this is a rare situation, the dry years will cycle through. When they do, restrictions can follow. The questions worth asking now: How is your irrigation system valued and covered? What does turf loss look like under your policy? And does your operation have a plan if watering gets restricted mid-season?
Wildfire risk doesn't stop at the fire line. A fire miles away can close your course for days during peak season, coat everything in ash, and drive away the tee times that were supposed to carry your year.
The renewal questions: Does your business interruption coverage respond to a smoke closure, or only to direct physical damage? Are outbuildings like the maintenance shop and pump house scheduled properly? What's your brush and defensible-space situation, and does your carrier give you credit for managing it? Eastern Washington, Central Oregon, and much of Idaho sit in real fire territory. Underwriters know it. Your coverage solution should reflect it.
Here's the one I push hardest on. A Northwest course makes most of its money in roughly five months. Business interruption coverage written on a standard form treats every month the same.
Those two facts don't fit together.
If a clubhouse fire takes you down in February, the revenue loss is real but survivable. The same fire in June can be a different event entirely, and your coverage limits, indemnity period, and seasonal adjustments may determine whether you come back from it. Ask your broker to walk you through exactly how your insurance solution would respond to a July loss versus a January one. If the answer is the same number, the policy wasn't built for a seasonal operation.
Every question above gets easier to answer when someone has walked your course. The pump house, the fuel storage, the new pavilion, the tree line along the boundary. Regional risk lives in physical details, and physical details may not show up on renewal paperwork.
If your current broker hasn't seen your property, that tells you something about how your insurance solutions were built.
Operators may think about coverage twice a year: at renewal, and at claim time. Only one of those gives you options.
The Northwest season is short. The risk list isn't. Going into renewal with the right questions is the cheapest risk management you may do all year.