The experiences gained in the execution of various crop insurance products in India have been described
along with the ways to redesign the strategies for effective implementation of such crop insurance products.
The study is based on the data collected from 90 farmers covered under National Agricultural Insurance
Scheme (NAIS) in three selected districts in Tamil Nadu, viz. Nagappattinam, Vellore and Madurai and
30 farmers covered under Varsha Bima, a weather-based insurance product in the Nagapattinam district.
The major problems in the implementation of NAIS, as indicated by respondents, are: poor awareness
about the scheme, delay in settlement of claims, complex procedure, high premium rate and wide variation
between yields of actual and crop-cutting experiment farms. In the case of Varsha Bima scheme
implemented in the Nagapattinam district, the major problems faced by the farmers are: non – availability
of the benefit since the implementation of the scheme, poor awareness about the details of weather
insurance schemes, high premium rate and wide variation in rainfall between the farm and the Reference
Weather Station. The study has offered several suggestions, based on farmers’ perceptions, to refine the
existing crop insurance schemes in India