Agriculture insurance policies stable on the market, wine grapes are the most insured crop in value

A farm business faces many risks and dangers. Unfavorable weather conditions can devastate a crop within a few minutes, or send months of work up in smoke. They can also damage structures, vehicles and so on, without counting events or actions that can distort market performances. And, this is also one of the reasons that even during the very challenging year of the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020, the market of subsidized agricultural insurance policies seems to have held its own, totaling a value of 8.5 billion euros in 2019 (+ 0.4%), of which 6.1 billion euros attributable in the vegetable cultivation sector alone (-0.1%), the ISMEA 2021 Agricultural Risk Management Report revealed.
The wine sector was the absolute number one player. Wine grapes reached 1.97 billion euros insured values, leading the ranking of crops (+ 0.5%), ahead of apples, at 671 million euros (-6.7%) and rice at 429 billion euros (+ 6.2%). Wine grapes and rice grew not only in terms of values ​​but also in terms of insured areas, showing, respectively, 25.5% and 30.5% increases in the extensions involved in the 2020 campaign compared to 2019. Some of the trends that the Report indicated were growth in policies for structures (mainly greenhouses and crop protection systems), totaling over 1 billion euros (+ 5.9% compared to 2019), 1.5% reduction in specific insurance for the livestock sector, mostly intended to cover health risks (1.3 billion euros), and also growth in insurance costs. Premiums for vegetable crops reached the highest level ever (557.8 million euros, +11%), plus the average rate applied by insurance companies is also at an all-time high.