Reduction of yield variance through crop insurance

Abstract

The variance of a producer's yield provides uncertainty and may be considered the risk a producer faces. crop insurance may provide protection against yield variability. If yields are necessarily low, an insured producer may receive an indemnity payment. Currently, crop insurance is based on each individual's yield. If the individual's yield falls below a specified level, the individual will receive an indemnity. An alternative crop insurance program bases indemnities on . an area yield. If the yield of the predetermined area falls below a specific level, all insured producers will receive an indemnity. This thesis examines the yield variability reduction received by purchasing various forms of area yield and individual yield crop insurance and the actuarially fair premium costs associated with them. When a producer purchases insurance two decisions are made. First, the producer selects a trigger level which determines the critical yield which generates an indemnity payment. Second, the producer may be able to select a coverage level which is the amount of acreage covered by the contract. Each contract examined allows different levels for the trigger and coverage levels. The variance reduction provided from each contract is the variance of the yield without insurance less the variance of the yield with an insurance contract. The results indicate most producers receive some variance reduction from the area yield contracts. And, producers who have yields which are closely correlated with the area yield receive more variance reduction from the area yield insurance than from the individual yield insurance contracts. However, the area yield contracts which provide on average more yield variance reduction than the individual yield contracts, also have much higher actuarially fair premium costs. The area yield insurance contracts should be considered as an alternative to individual yield insurance, but the premium costs must be evaluated also.