Coverage Available: We service and cover a wide variety of crops and livestock - with coverage to include field grains, forage crops, grapes, vegetables, beef, etc. - with the bulk of our business involving corn, soybeans, and wheat. The basic MPCI (Multi-Peril Crop Insurance ) coverage is offered as yield only protection (YP) or the coverage of choice recently, RP - Revenue Protection which includes a minimum price guarantee. A further development of the coverages has been EU (Enterprise Units) - this option simply combines all of your acres of the crop into one unit for loss purposes - definitely a break from earlier options where the goal was to break out your coverage farm by farm or unit by unit. Obviously, not as likely to have a claim, but also a far more straight-forward approach to loss adjustment (or "to minimize " fraud and abuse if you choose that language). In trying to afford producers the maximum amount of protection for their premium dollars, the EU policies afford far more total liability protection than otherwise affordable. These are all "subsidized" products - meaning that the government, in one form or another, is picking up a large share of the insurance cost of these products. A lot of "politics" involved to get to this point. But ultimately, the combination of weather conditions and political makes for a tough occupation !!
Eligibility- Crop insurance is still available to basically everyone, but ....... The subsidy amounts which make it affordable, are not available unless you are in "Conservation Compliance" and have a current FSA form 1026 on file.
Perils - Crop insurance covers losses due to any act of God, and with revenue coverage, can help protect against crop price swings. Corn harvested as silage or high moisture, it must be appraised before harvest- whether you have a claim or not.
Counties: You "usually" have a separate policy for each county where you grow crops - this is governed by where the land is physically located, not which FSA office you report to ... With the advent of Enterprise units and the ability to lump multi-county coverage together ((MCEU) You still must insure all acres of a covered crop that are within the unit structure of your policy).
Unit Structure: BU (Basic Unit) all of the crop within the county is lumped together, -with CAT, BU is the only choice. OU (Optional Unit) means that you could insure farms or sections separately these must be set up before planting, and the premiums are significantly higher than BU - on smaller operations, the physical location or FSA farm numbering may limit your choices. EU (Enterprise Units) has become the selection of choice in recent years - largely due to the way they now price the premiums. EU lumps all of the crop into one unit - subjects to some minimum qualifying requirements. There are qualifying requirements for both OU and EU. We always try to quote all three choices. EU gets you the most bang for your premium dollars, even though you are not as likely to qualify for isolated farm by farm claims! With wide-spread conditions like this year's drought in central Ohio, it works great -you can ultimately have more coverage at the cheaper premium with EU coverage.
Timely Planting Dates: In Ohio 5 June for corn and 20 June for beans - oats are 1O May. Pa. uses 1O June for both corn and beans. You still have coverage for any of those crops planted after those dates, but ...your guarantees are reduced by 1o/o per day on those crops.
Replant Payments: All levels above CAT - pays 8 times corn price or 3 times bean price per acre -20/20 rule applies- must be 20% of the unit or 20 acres whichever is less for a payment. Supplemental replant coverage dollars can be added if it is a concern.
Prevented Planting (PP): If you are unable to plant a crop by the established planting dates, you can file for a PP loss - basically stating that it has been too wet to get a crop in the ground. In our Ohio / Pennsylvania areas, that is a valuable part of the coverage. This coverage used to have an option to add an extra 10% (PT) to your PP guarantee - that was cut back to 5% (PF) extra in recent years - and now for 2026 there is no extra option available. Prevented planting is still part of the MPCI polices, but pay a basic 55% of your normal guarantee for the PP acres..
Billing: Premiums are quoted in terms of your actual cost on the actual number of acres you report as planted or PP - the Federal subsidy pays approx. 60% of the total premiums. No money is due up front, with premiums due 1 October for corn/ bean coverage - (recent economic and health issues have resulted in extension of the normal dates when interest would attach).
Most important insured responsibility: Acreage reporting must accurately reflect FSA acres" - not planter acres (work with FSA office if your acres don't agree!!) - it's great if the acres all match!
