Swiss Re, a leading re-insurance company, feels that agriculture insurance in India is largely untapped and the premium from this category has a potential to touch $1 billion in 3-5 years. To further expand its footprint in India, the company has tied up with the Maharashtra government to provide crop insurance to farmers.
Swiss Re on Wednesday released two reports, titled ‘Livestock in India — diversification for rural development’ and ‘Aquaculture in India — growing a new industry’, highlighting the need for higher insurance penetration in these sectors to bridge the protection gap in India, making it a food-secure nation.
“Offering localised and tailored policies can be an effective way of convincing livestock farmers to take interest in insurance. Bundling revenue protection cover with livestock insurance could be another,” said Harini Kannan, head of Agriculture Reinsurance for South West Asia at Swiss Re.
The partnership with the Maharashtra government aims to increase awareness about crop insurance to ensure sustainable living for farmers as well as help fast-track settlement of claims.
Through this collaboration, Swiss Re would assist in village-level surveys for crop loss through satellite-based imaging.
“Farmers should be given affordable and easy access to facilities like vaccination of animals, advice on best farming practices, and market and weather information. Regulatory and process reforms for livestock should take this into account,” said Kannan.
The report states that aquaculture was widely supported by insurance companies in its boom time in the mid-90s, but has since lost favour owing to disease outbreaks in aqua farms.
On the sidelines of the event, Samir Shah, MD & CEO, National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) said they would shortly launch a set of exchange-traded weather insurance products.