Still contemplating hail insurance even though our agent says it costs the same if we wait a week, but we sleep better in the mean time 🙃
I insure my crops with enterprise units. Meaning all the corn in the county and all the soybeans in the county are in the same bucket of insurance. At the end of the year I will have total bushels for that crop in the county covered. Rather than optional units where we insure each field individually.
If we would get a hail storm that completely annihilated one field, the odds of my average coming in at or slightly above my coverage level are good.
We would buy hail insurance to cover individual fields. We would buy it to protect the upside of our crop. No one gets ahead raising a crop that comes in slightly above a crop insurance loss.
There are multiple options for deductibles and coverage which range from about $3-$12.
Hail insurance is usually sold by the $100 of coverage, but can be customized too. So if I wanted $150 of coverage I’d take the rate times 1.5.
I’ve seen hail insurance pay. Be a really good risk management tool.
I’ve also seen it miss. Where it didn’t pay.
Back when I was working a job, I had a conversation with an experienced farmer. He told me he took hail insurance for the first few years of his farming career. Then after the bank didn’t require it of him, he never took it again. Said he had been hailed on twice in his tenure.
I think of him every hail season.
I’ve also heard a story where a family lost everything to hail the one year they didn’t buy hail insurance because they didn’t have the money. It’s altered their trajectory ever since.
I think of them every hail season.
Kyle’s asked me multiple times if I’ve bought hail insurance yet… and I haven’t. Not yet…
Have you?
