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Crop Insurance Basics: Incentives

When policymakers prioritize specific behaviors or actions, they usually turn to incentives to jumpstart the process. For example, the U.S. government has long promoted the benefits of homeownership to individual families and the economy as a whole. Hence, lawmakers introduced mortgage interest deductions on income tax filings to make homeownership more affordable and attractive. In […]

Crop Insurance Basics: Actual Production History

One of crop insurance’s defining attributes is its self-correcting nature. That is, farmers who exhibit more risk pay more than those who exhibit less – much in the same way that car insurers reward safe drivers. This is done by collecting and analyzing a producer’s Actual Production History (APH), which takes into account a grower’s […]

Crop Insurance Basics: Available to All

In the everyday insurance world, coverage may sometimes be hard to come by. That can be true if you’ve had a disaster – such as a fire in your home – or live in an area at high risk for disaster. Car insurance coverage may be more expensive or even denied if you are a […]

Crop Insurance Basics: Good Farming Practices

Suppose you’re a homeowner who intentionally neglects your property, refusing to make basic repairs and even creating unsafe conditions like exposed wires or leaky pipes. Now suppose your house, not surprisingly, is damaged from a resulting fire or flood. Are you entitled to a full homeowner’s insurance payout? Of course not. A homeowner’s policy has […]

Crop Insurance Basics: Cost Sharing

Federal crop insurance is arguably the first farm policy in history that is financed, in part, by the farmers who benefit from it. Unlike farm policies of the past, which were 100 percent backed by taxpayers, modern-day farm policy requires growers to take an active role in sharing the financial costs of protecting America’s crops […]

Crop Insurance Basics: Actuarially Sound

Unless you’re an economist, an insurance guru, or a pension fund manager, chances are good you’re not overly familiar with the term actuarial soundness. In short, it’s a fancy way of saying “the math must work.” For example, an actuarially sound pension fund will have enough money in the bank to meet future obligations. If […]