Publication: Government Support to Agricultural
Insurance : Challenges and Options for Developing Countries
Loading...
Published
2010
ISSN
Date
2012-03-19
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Governments in developing countries have been increasingly involved in the support of commercial agricultural (crop and livestock) insurance programs in recent years. A striking example is China, where, with support (and premium subsidies) from the central and provincial governments, the agricultural insurance market grew dramatically to become the second largest market in the world (after the United States) in 2008. In India and Mexico, weather-based crop insurance has been developed on a large scale to protect farmers against the vagaries of the weather. Many other countries have investigated the feasibility of agricultural insurance, and some have implemented pilot programs. This book aims to inform and update public and private decision makers involved in promoting agricultural insurance about recent developments in agriculture insurance. The literature is heavily biased toward the practice and experience of a few very large public-private programs in Northern America and Europe, which are driven by large public financial subsidies. This book provides decision makers with a framework for developing agricultural insurance. It is based on an analytical review of the rationale for public intervention in agricultural insurance and a detailed comparative analysis of crop and livestock insurance programs provided with and without government support in more than 65 developed and developing countries. The comparative analysis is based on a survey conducted by the World Bank's agricultural insurance team in 2008. Drawing on the survey results, the book identifies some key roles governments can play to support the development of sustainable, affordable, and cost-effective agricultural insurance programs.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Mahul, Olivier; Stutley, Charles J.. 2010. Government Support to Agricultural
Insurance : Challenges and Options for Developing Countries. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/2432 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Weather Index Insurance for Agriculture(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-11)This paper is a distillation of the findings of the work undertaken by the World Bank. It is deliberately not a collation of case studies, but rather a practical overview of the subject. The purpose of this paper is to introduce task managers and development professionals, who are not insurance sector specialists, to weather index insurance. Ultimately, the paper seeks to take the reader through the main decision points that would lead to a decision to embark upon a weather index insurance pilot and then assists them to understand the technical procedures and requirements that are involved with it. In addition, the paper seeks to advise the reader of the practical challenges and implications that are involved with a pilot of this nature and what they might expect to encounter during the initial stages of implementation. The very nature of an index based product creates the chance that an insured party may not be paid when they suffer loss and/or that they may receive a payment when they have suffered no loss. This paper also does not seek to delve deeply into the technical details and science that lie behind the 'black box' that is at the heart of the index.Publication Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries : Principles for Public Intervention(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009)Public intervention in catastrophe insurance markets, supported by the donor community and the World Bank, should be country specific. Low-income countries, where the domestic non-life insurance market is undeveloped, should focus in the short term on the development of sovereign catastrophe insurance solutions and the promotion of public goods related to risk market infrastructure. These countries are usually not mature enough for the promotion of catastrophe insurance pools for private homeowners. Middle-income countries, where the domestic non-life insurance market is more developed, should help the private insurance industry offer market-based catastrophe insurance solutions to homeowners and to small and medium enterprises, including the agricultural sector. This book offers a framework, with lessons drawn from recent experience, guiding principles for public intervention and potential roles for donors and International Financial Institutions (IFIs). These lessons are expected to be used in developing affordable, effective and sustainable country-specific catastrophe insurance programs.Publication Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC, 2012-11)This policy note is a preliminary effort to present a body of knowledge on the state of disaster risk financing and insurance in Sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to contribute to a strengthened understanding and collective knowledge within Sub-Saharan Africa on disaster risk financing and insurance, and to encourage open dialogue between stakeholders on how strategies can best be developed to increase financial resilience against natural disasters. The report is targeted at policy-makers and actors in the international community with an interest in this agenda. In the context of this report, disaster risk financing and insurance refers to instruments and mechanisms at the macro, market and micro level that provide financial resources to assist with response and recovery efforts in the aftermath of a disaster. This report focuses on natural disasters, which we can describe as unforeseen events driven by natural phenomena that cause serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society causing widespread human, material, economic and/or environmental losses which overwhelm the capacity of the affected community or society. This report discusses rapid onset disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes and floods but also slow onset events such as drought. Sub-Saharan African countries are highly exposed to a wide range of adverse natural events, with hydro-meteorological hazards impacting the largest number of people. Disaster risk financing and insurance (DRFI) has been highlighted by the African union, regional economic communities and individual countries as an area for regional financial cooperation.Publication Insurance against Climate Change : Financial Disaster Risk Management and Insurance Options for Climate Change Adaptation in Bulgaria(Washington, DC, 2014)Bulgaria is exposed to nearly all types of climate extremes, including floods, droughts, and others, as well as earthquakes. The combination of insurance products, early warning systems, information campaigns, infrastructure adaptation measures, and strict regulations can be very useful in tackling the negative climate change impacts. This note provides an overview of the insurance sector s contribution to climate change - related risk prevention and highlights some of Bulgaria s ongoing disaster risk management (DRM) efforts. The note aims to raise awareness and emphasize the role that financial disaster risk management (FDRM), including insurance, can have in climate change adaptation. Based on a desk review and preliminary in-country stakeholder consultations, the note s findings are meant to motivate new thinking and serve as an engagement tool for ongoing in-country discussions, as well to help identify analytical work to be carried out in the future. Based on the preliminary review of Bulgaria s specific context, several ideas are being put forward to be further explored in the ongoing discussions toward creating FDRM products to address the major natural disasters (in particular, floods, droughts, and earthquakes) and improving adaptation to climate change. Potential areas of analysis that can be further explored and, as such, plant a seed for future action can focus on promoting risk prevention and deploying insurance instruments, including issues around traditional risk management, technology innovation, compulsory disaster insurance, forecast insurance, and disaster insurance pools. The analysis which will assess the extent of vulnerability of the subjects covered by existing insurance products, can subsequently lead to the decisions on priority insurance products to be introduced in the future.Publication Jamaica : Toward a Strategy for Financial Weather Risk Management in Agriculture(Washington, DC, 2009-11)This report forms part of the technical assistance provided by the World Bank under the Non-lending Technical Assistance Program for the Caribbean 'market-based agriculture risk management in the Caribbean.' The program is largely financed by the European Union All Agriculture Commodities Program (AACP) Initiative and contributions from the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Bank. This document provides technical input for designing a national strategy for addressing the financial weather risks facing the agricultural sector of Jamaica. As such, it identifies the various options from current available financial risk transfer instruments for addressing crop weather risks for small farmers (livestock risks are not directly addressed in this report) and identifies the public investments needed for supporting market development of the agricultural insurance market. The report is structured in five sections to facilitate its presentation. The first two sections present a snapshot of the Jamaican economy and agricultural sector, and the current situation of agricultural insurance; third section addresses a set of key issues for designing a government strategy for agricultural financial weather risk management; fourth section contains the elements of public policy and investments to support market development for agricultural insurance, and various illustrations of how to structure financial weather risk management instruments for the sector. The report concludes with a short section containing final remarks and recommendations.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Reclaiming the Lost Century of Growth: Building Learning Economies in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-06)Update: The Spanish version of the full book was published on September 9, 2025. Latin America and the Caribbean has lost not decades but a century of growth due to its inability to learn—to identify, adapt, and implement the new technologies emerging since the Second Industrial Revolution. Superstars like Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay fell behind peers like France and Germany, while the entire region retrogressed in industries it once dominated and was unable to take advantage of new opportunities that propelled similarly lagging countries to high-income status. The report shows that this remains the case today as the region’s firms continue to lag in assimilating new technologies. However, it argues that Latin America and the Caribbean can reclaim the lost century by building learning economies, creating the human capital, institutions, and incentives needed to increase the demand for knowledge, facilitate the flow of new ideas, and foment the process of experimentation.Publication From Resource Rich to Resource Smart: Opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Energy Transition(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-12)Countries that successfully capitalize on ever-advancing technologies and the growing consumer demand for sustainable products will deliver meaningful benefits to their people and economies. Drawing on best-in-class analytics, "From Resource Rich to Resource Smart: Opportunities for Latin America and the Caribbean in the Energy Transition" identifies specific areas of opportunity and concrete actions that countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region can take to reap the upside of the energy transition. The policy implications are clear: Transforming Latin America’s economic landscape will require concerted and coordinated efforts by governments to strengthen institutions, ensure that the investment climate incentivizes capital flows to green priorities, and support the ongoing development of an innovation ecosystem that drives the net-zero transition. The global transition to a net-zero economy opens a window of opportunity for the Latin America and the Caribbean region. This report offers a roadmap to turn this potential into reality.Publication Latin America and the Caribbean Economic Review, October 2025: Transformational Entrepreneurship for Jobs and Growth(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-07)Latin America and the Caribbean faces a challenging outlook: slow economic and job growth, lower commodity prices, sluggish decline in global interest rates reducing demand and complicating debt service, weak investment, stalled nearshoring, and tight fiscal space. Structural gaps in infrastructure, education, regulation, competition, and tax policy curb technology adoption and quality job creation. The report highlights an entrepreneurship puzzle that despite high measured entrepreneurial spirit, status and activity in the region, growth remains low. This is due to a mass of informal micro firms with little intent to scale coexisting with a shallow pool of transformational firms. Education and STEM shortfalls shrink the pipeline; management quality, registered startups, and tecnolatinas lag peers. Two binding constraints—shallow financial markets and scarce skilled workers—impede scaling. Possible policy responses include strengthening human capital through improved education and targeted training, expanding access to finance by deepening capital markets and enhancing creditor protections, fostering competitive markets and innovation incentives, and modernizing labor regulations to reduce hiring costs.