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Crop insurance is purchased by agricultural producers, including farmers, ranchers, and others to protect themselves against either the loss of their crops due to natural disasters, such as hail, drought,and floods, or the loss of revenue due to declines in the prices of agricultural commodities. The two general categories of crop insurance are called crop-yield insurance and crop-revenue insurance. == The History of Crop Insurance in the U.S. == In 1938, Congress passed the Federal Crop Insurance Act, which established the first Federal Crop Insurance Program. These early efforts were not particularly successful due to high program costs and low participation rates among farmers. The program had difficulty amassing sufficient reserves to pay claims and was not financially viable. In 1980, Congress passed legislation to increase participation in the Federal Crop Insurance Program and make it more affordable and accessible. This modern era of crop insurance was marked by the introduction of a public-private partnership between the U.S. government and private insurance companies. The Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994 dramatically restructured the program. And in 1996, the Risk Management Agency (RMA) was created in the U.S. Department of Agriculture to administer the Federal Crop Insurance Program. Through subsidies built into the new program guidelines, participation increased dramatically. By 1998, more than 180 million acres of farmland were insured under the program, representing a three-fold increase over 1988. In 2011, farmers purchased over two million crop insurance policies, protecting over 265 million acres of farmland, with new liabilities in excess of $114 billion. These policies covered roughly 83 percent of eligible acres. Record indemnities were paid out to farmers and ranchers in 2011, totaling nearly $11 billion. (4) Today, the Federal Crop Insurance Program is the primary risk management program available to U.S. agricultural producers and a vital component of the farm safety net, addressing both the risks associated with price volatility and with unexpected disasters. (5) Crop insurance is a risk-based program that currently covers 128 crops (6) and does not make annual subsidy payments to farmers. When crop insurance does supply monetary payments to farmers, the payments come in the form of indemnity checks that restore a portion of an actual loss. Many farmers pay crop insurance premium costs for a number of years without receiving indemnity payments because they have not experienced an actual loss. (7) *Crop-yield insurance: There are two main classes of crop-yield insurance: * *Crop-hail insurance is generally available from private insurers (in countries with private sectors) because hail is a narrow peril that occurs in a limited place and its accumulated losses tend not to overwhelm the capital reserves of private insurers. In early 1820s, crop-hail insurance were available to farmers in France and Germany. That is among the earliest forms of hail insurance from an actuarial perspective. It is possible to implement the hail risk into financial instruments since the risk is isolated. * *Multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI): Coverage in this type of insurance is not limited to just one risk. Usually multi-peril crop insurance offers hail, excessive rain and drought in a combined package. Sometimes, additional risks such as insect or bacteria-related diseases are also offered. The problem with the multi-peril crop insurance is the possibility of a large scale event. Such an event can cause significant losses beyond the insurer's financial capacity. To make this class of insurance, the perils are often bundled together in a single policy, called a multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI) policy. MPCI coverage is usually offered by a government insurer and premiums are usually partially subsidized by the government. U.S. Department of Agriculture is known to implement the earliest Multi Peril Crop Insurance program in 1938. Federal Crop Insurance Corporation managed this multi-peril insurance program since then. The Risk Management Agency (RMA) is active in calculating the premiums based on individual risk factors since 1996. *Crop-revenue insurance: Crop-yield times the crop price gives the crop-revenues. Based on farmer's revenues, crop-revenue insurance is based on deviation from the mean revenue. RMA uses the futures prices on harvest-times listed in the commodity exchange markets, to determined the prices. Combining the future price with farmer's average production gives the estimated revenue of the farmer. Accessing the futures market offers enables revenue protection even before the crop planted. There is a single guarantee for a certain number of dollars. The policy pays an indemnity if the combination of the actual yield and the cash settlement price in the futures market is less than the guarantee. In the United States, the program is called Crop Revenue Coverage. Crop-revenue insurance covers the decline in price that occurs during the crop's growing season. It does not cover declines that may occur from one growing season to another. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Crop insurance」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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