2011 Indemnity Payments Already Surpass Historic Record, Still Climbing
 With claims still streaming in — only an estimated 81 percent of expected claims have been finalized — crop insurance companies have already paid out a record $9.1 billion in indemnity payments to America’s farmers in 2011. This has already surpassed the former record of $8.67 billion in indemnities paid in 2008, according to USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA).
“Working as designed since 2008, more than $27 billion in private-backed crop insurance payouts over the past four years have helped farmers pick up the pieces after natural disasters or market drops,” said Keith Collins, former USDA Chief Economist. “Without crop insurance in place, those billions in damages would have fallen onto the laps of lenders, input suppliers, marketers, land owners and farm families, just as the economy was spiraling downward and unemployment was soaring,” he said.
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In Risk Management, One Size Does Not Fit All
by Jay Armstrong
 Looking out the window at snowflakes as they blanket my fields, it’s hard to believe that no two snowflakes are alike. In fact, each snowflake contains so many water molecules, arranged in so many random patterns, that the mathematical possibility of any two identical flakes appearing in the lifetime of the universe is indistinguishable from zero.
Likewise, no two farms are alike. While one farm might look like the next as you drive by, every farm is unique, with vast differences ranging from topography, soil types, crops grown, machinery used, abilities and disposition of the farmer, and even varying levels of risk tolerance that are acceptable.
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Keeping Crop Insurance Strong
This is the final in the yearlong series that presented one of the many strengths of crop insurance per month and detailed how the sum of the 12 essential crop insurance strengths has given us the successful program we have today. These strengths are especially important as policy makers contemplate further cuts to farm safety net policies.
Strength: Crop Insurance Has Flexibility to Help Meet World Trade Organization Disciplines
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