This publication is primarily concerned with risks to arable and horticultural crops, and the applicability of insurance to managing these risks. Its purpose is to provide an introductory overview of crop and forestry insurance. It begins by defining the boundaries for these types of insurance products in order to assist those interested in exploring and exploiting this financial mechanism. It then outlines how to proceed with planning for crop insurance within the established boundaries. While recognizing that classic, damage-based and yield-based insurance products account for the bulk of all crop insurance written globally, the booklet also points out the dynamism of research and development into new insurance mechanisms. It presents two fairly new insurance products: the first based on insuring a level of crop revenue, and the second where insurable damage is determined on the basis of an index derived from data external to the insured farm. While some of the example material is taken from agriculture and forestry in developed countries, the basic target group of readers is expected to be those concerned with crop and forest risk management in developing parts of the world. This publication will be of interest to farmer unions, producer/commodity groups, processors, marketing firms and others contracting with farmer producers, officials of Ministries of Agriculture, Planning and Commerce, and bankers and insurers with farming and forestry clients.

A brief introduction to the role of insurance as a risk management mechanism in livestock and aquaculture enterprises, exploring some of the complexities involved in the financial mechanism for risk sharing.

Governments in developing countries have been increasingly involved in the support of agricultural (crop and livestock) insurance programs in recent years. In their attempts to design and implement agricultural insurance, they have sought technical and financial assistance from the international community and particularly from the World Bank. One of the recurrent requests from governments regards international experience with agricultural insurance, not only in developed countries, where in some cases agricultural insurance has been offered for more than a century, but also in middleand low-income countries. Governments are particularly interested in the technical, operational, financial, and institutional aspects of public support to agricultural insurance. 'Government Support to Agricultural Insurance' informs public and private decision makers involved in agricultural insurance about recent developments, with a particular focus on middle- and low-income countries. It presents an updated picture of the spectrum of institutional frameworks and experiences with agricultural insurance, ranging from countries in which the public sector provides no support to those in which governments heavily subsidize agricultural insurance. This analysis is based on a survey conducted by the World Bank s agricultural insurance team in 2008 in 65 developed and developing countries. Drawing on the survey results, the book identifies some key roles governments can play to support the development of sustainable, affordable, and cost-effective agricultural insurance programs.

Researchers and policymakers have long understood the benefits of crop insurance but have been consistently disappointed by the poor performance of these programs. Rarely have programs seen sizeable take-up rates without support through large government subsidies, and in many countries, demand has been meager even at prices well below fair-market rates. Experiences from India have largely followed this trend, despite a number of large policy initiatives. Limited demand stems from low perceived value, arguably because the existing insurance products are unsuited to farmers’ needs. The present study fills an important gap in rural development by improving upon existing insurance policy design by incorporating product characteristics better suited to farmers’ preferences. To do so, we conducted a discrete choice experiment with agricultural households in four states in India. While farmers seem to like several of the features of policies offered under existing programs, our results suggest they would generally be willing to pay more than the highly subsidized rate they currently pay and are also clearly dissatisfied with delayed and uncertain indemnity payments and would be willing to pay a significant premium for more assured and timely payment delivery.

This guide for university departments and research institutes explores multi-risk crop insurance for developing countries. It covers the needs and benefits of crop insurance, how to approach it, problems and difficulties, and more.

This book, which deals comprehensively with agricultural insurance, is the second edition of a book that was published in 1967. The book first deals with the nature of agricultural risks and their insurability. The second part describes the principles and practices of the main types of insurance currently applied to agriculture in different countries. The third and last part is a critical examination of the applicability of the techniques of crop and livestock insurance so far evolved in developed countries to developing countries, and also the possibilities of international reinsurance of national crop insurance systems.

Agricultural Insurance: Principles and Organization and Application to Developing Countries states that agriculture is subject to special elements of uncertainty. The risk inherent in agriculture has been exhaustively discussed in the text. Risks in agriculture can be characterized as property risk and personal risk. Natural risk such as storms, plant diseases, and insect pests is another topic covered in the book. A type of risk that is identified as drought, inundation, frost and freeze, hail, and tornado is called meteorological risk. The book also discusses another form of risk, which is named social risk. Occurrence such as fire, theft or burglary, embezzlement, and technological change belongs to this type of risk. A chapter of the book is devoted to the ways on how to remedy the risks enumerated. Another section of the book defines the term insurance. This section introduces such topic as probability, uncertainty, and the law of large numbers. The book notes that in order for agricultural risk to be insurable, it must satisfy some parameters. The text will provide valuable insight for farmers, financial planners, statisticians, students, and researchers in the field of risk management.