Crop Insurance in the United States
NEW DATA - Insurance subsidies to individual policyholders
Washington, D.C. - A new analysis of over a million government records never before made public and obtained by the Environmental Working Group through the Freedom of Information Act has found that in 2011 more than 10,000 individual farming operations have received federal crop insurance premium subsidies ranging from $100,000 to more than $1 million apiece. Some 26 farming operations received subsidies of $1 million or more last year. Read More
26 farm businesses benefitted from $1 million in subsidies to buy crop insurance in 2011.
Policyholders receiving the most Insurance subsidies - Nation, state and county. National list here.
10 percent of farm businesses received 54 percent of all insurance subsidies in 2011. Click here
Federally subsidized crop insurance is available to farmers if their crop is an eligible crop for their area. The government provides 50% catastrophic coverage to farmers at no cost to the farmer. However, farmers can upgrade their coverage by purchasing additional insurance through crop insurance companies.
| Government Expenses of the Crop Insurance Program in the United States (1995-2012) | ||
|---|---|---|
| IndemnitiesIndemnities are the amount of money that is paid out by the Federal Government to farmers in claims of loss or damage to an insured crop. | $76,897,777,061 | |
| Administrative and Operating Expense ReimbursementsAmounts paid by the Federal Government to insurance companies to administer the crop insurance program. | $16,617,279,100 | |
| Other Federal ExpensesIncludes Federal administration and program costs as well as Emergency Financial Assistance (EFA) primarily in 1999-2000 which paid a percentage of farmer premiums. The EFA paid $855 million dollars in farmer premiums over the life of the program. | $2,903,503,798 | |
| Expenses to the Government | $96,418,559,958 | |
| Government Revenue of the Crop Insurance Program in the United States (1995-2012) | Farmer PremiumsAmount paid by farmers for insurance premiums | $36,319,957,037 |
| Government Earned Interest | $795,910,005 | |
| Revenue to the Government | $37,115,867,042 | |
| Cost of the Crop Insurance Program in the United States (1995-2012) | ||
| Cost to the Government* Underwriting Gains paid by the government to crop insurance companies are not included in this total - see methodology. Crop insurance companies were paid $12 billion nationally by the government in underwriting gains from 1995-2012 and is a cost not shown in this table. | $59,302,692,917 | |
Note: The information on conservation spending for 2011and 2012 are incomplete due to missing data from USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service. In addition some payments made in 2010 were not assigned to recipients in the data received from NRCS. Those payments are also not included.
The information provided for the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) provides an inaccurate picture of how WRP payments are distributed. USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service uses title companies as intermediaries to finalize wetlands easements under the Wetlands Reserve Program. As a result, the data provided to us shows large sums of money going to these title companies. In reality, the payments are ultimately distributed to landowners participating in the WRP.
Unfortunately, NRCS has not provided the data to show where these farms and wetlands are located or which farmers or landowners are enrolling in the program, so EWG is unable to allocate these large sums of money to individuals beyond the title companies. Therefore, these companies skew the conservation rankings and payment concentration, which EWG cannot avoid unless and until NRCS makes available the additional farm attribution data. Therefore, we have not included WRP payments in the 2011 or 2012 data update.
We have separated data on farm commodity, disaster and conservation payments in order to provide a more accurate picture of top recipients and concentration of payments among the three main categories of USDA programs.
Finally, EWG works hard to ensure the accuracy of the information it provides through its products and services, but obtains data for the Farm Subsidy Database from the U.S. Department of Agriculture pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Therefore, EWG cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information USDA provides or any analysis based thereon. If you find an error or discrepancy on the site, please contact your local USDA Farm Service Agency office to check its records before contacting EWG.
