Crop insurance claims will follow floods

NATIONAL CROP INSURANCE SERVICES

8900 Indian Creek Parkway, Suite 600

Overland Park , KS 66210

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 29, 2006
Data in this story provided by the Risk Management Agency.
For more information contact Jan Eliassen at 410-778-0120

Crop insurance claims will follow floods

This week’s tropical deluge in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states damaged or destroyed crops from North Carolina through New York. Especially badly hit were crops growing in the fertile river valleys. The good news is that many of the affected farmers were covered by federally subsidized crop insurance policies.

As the water poured down hillsides and flattened corn fields, farmers were calling their crop insurance agents and adjusters were getting out their boots. Usually, when there is a likelihood of a large number of claims after major disasters, crop insurance companies will bring in additional adjusters to witness the damage quickly. Although it is late in the planting season, in some cases farmers may be able to switch to another crop and replant, but not until the adjusters have done their job.

In Pennsylvania alone nearly 9,000 crop insurance policies covering nearly 700,000 acres were in place in flood designated counties. Those policies had nearly $153,000,000 of insurance protection in place to cover this kind of weather event.

Over the past five years more and more farmers in this area have been investing in crop insurance. They have also been getting higher levels of coverage than before.

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