Crop Insurance - A journey witnessed

Crop Insurance is based on statistical tools, administration machinery down to the grass root level, technology, satellite imagery services, insurance intellect and many other highly specialized expertise being used in crop insurance in the country making it more effective and the largest crop scheme in the world in terms of farmers enrolment, having millions of applications every year and amongst the top 3 in terms of premium received

l was thinking about how since the time I got involved in crop insurance, I have seen it change as the scheme moved from strength to strength and thought of writing an article on the same. It all started in the year 2007 when I had brief exposure to weather-based Insurance at IFFCO - Tokio in Madhya Pradesh as the Regional Head there. Most of it was collected from individual insured and was settled based on IMD-based weather insurance. The premium collection was a major challenge for us as we used the channels like district cooperative banks, who were our business partners. As I moved back to Delhi with IFFCO- Tokio in 2008, this brief experience was temporarily curtailed.

Cut to 2014, and at Universal Sompo, a decision at the highest level was taken that we will empanel our company as a partner in the crop insurance scheme and offer crop insurance with the Ministry of Agriculture through various states based on the tender. The Ministry of Agriculture, based on the presentation and our inclination to participate in crop insurance, considered us for empanelment. They had empanelled certain insurance companies earlier and USGI joined that list. Agriculture Insurance Corporation (AIC) has been a master at crop insurance since then, but the other Government companies were not implementing crop insurance at this point.