Agricultural insurance development: results of public consultations

Basic terms and conditions for the government support of agricultural insurance, including its approaches and principles, as well as requirements for insurance programmes, must be stipulated in the form of law. At the same time, specific insurance programmes aimed at satisfying the needs of farmers, the state and insurers must be introduced through bylaws. Such are the results of the discussion of the Bank of Russia’s consultative report ‘Proposals for the development of state-supported agricultural insurance in the Russian Federation’.

According to the discussion participants, the development of insurance programmes is primarily required for such areas as insuring the costs of producing agricultural crops, growing protected agricultural crops, replanting winter crops, fighting against highly dangerous animal diseases, and the cost of pledged property. Moreover, discussion participants noted that it was reasonable to introduce pilot index-based insurance programmes that should take into account the specifics of insurants and insurance objects.

Respondents supported the Bank of Russia’s initiatives to reconcile the terms and conditions of state-supported insurance and bank collateral insurance in the crop farming and animal husbandry areas as well as to condition the granting of benefits under other types of state support for farmers on the availability of an agricultural insurance agreement.

Most participants agreed that the loss settlement framework required further development and that it was necessary to make better use of remote monitoring tools.

The Bank of Russia will consider suggestions and comments presented during the discussion when preparing the amendments to legal acts concerning state-supported agricultural insurance.