Income insurance in European agriculture

The agricultural risk environment in Europe is changing, for example because of WTO agreements and governments increasingly withdrawing from disaster assistance in case of catastrophic events. In this context, some form of income insurance may be a useful risk management tool for farmers. Insuring farmers' incomes, however, is rather problematical for reasons of asymmetric information and high correlation of the risks amongst the would-be insured, for example risks due to price fluctuations, floods, droughts and livestock epidemics. It is concluded that the most aggregated forms of income insurance that are likely to be feasible include revenue insurance for field crops, especially if there are relevant futures markets and area yield data, and business interruption insurance for livestock commodities. In Europe, only a few such schemes currendy exist; some are purely private, others are subsidised. A somewhat larger involvement of the public sector, for example through public-private partnerships for reinsurance, could extend the availability of income insurance schemes throughout Europe. Governments, however, should tread warily in entering the field of subsidised agricultural insurance, which experience shows is beset with pitfalls. Pilot tests are useful in establishing the attractiveness of income insurance schemes and other income stabilising tools for the various parties involve

Poverty traps and Index-Based risk transfer products

A growing literature suggests that in low-income countries, households with few assets can be trapped in chronic poverty. This article reviews relevant threads of the poverty traps literature to motivate a description of the opportunities presented by innovative index-based risk transfer products. These products can be used to address some insurance and credit market failures that contribute to the persistence of poverty among households in low-income countries. Applications are considered at the micro, meso, and macro levels

Designing epidemic livestock insurance

This chapter deals with (1) designing an epidemic livestock insurance in such a way that farmers get the right incentives to behave in the interest of the collective; (2) designing a risk-financing model that deals with the systematic character of the risk and that considers a diminishing financial role for governments over time; and (3) rating the insurance by means of expert information and Monte Carlo simulation modelling to address data problems. The chapter has a European perspective and estimated premium rates apply to foot and mouth disease and hog cholera in the Netherlands

Is There a Viable Market for Area-Based Crop Insurance?

The performance of area yield insurance and farm-level multiple peril crop insurance is analyzed for cotton and soybean production in Georgia and South Carolina. The analysis improves on many previous studies by utilizing actual farm-level yield data and by comparing the two types of insurance products not only for actuarially fair premium rates but also for actual unsubsidized and subsidized premium rates. Results suggest that, even in heterogeneous production regions, area yield insurance may be a viable alternative to farm-level insurance when premium rates for farm-level insurance contain large positive wedges. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.