Webinar: From Catastrophic to Shallow Loss Coverage: An Economist's Perspective of U.S. Crop Insurance Program and Implications for Developing Countries
When: November 20, 2013 from 12pm EST to 1:30pm EST
Presentation by: Robert Dismukes, recently retired agricultural economist from the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA ERS)
Moderator: Mark Cackler, Manager of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank
Discussant: Daniel Clarke, senior Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance (DRFI) specialist in the World Bank-GFDRR DRFI Program
Watch the Recorded Webinar
Download the Presentation
About the Event
This event was held at the World Bank, co-sponsored by the Agriculture & Environmental Services Department and the Financial & Private Sector Development Department.
For more than 30 years the U.S. government has operated a crop insurance program that has been intended to eliminate or reduce the need for ad-hoc disaster assistance. The insurance program uses premium subsidies to encourage participation by crop producers. Participation and program costs have grown: more than 80 percent of major field crop acreage is insured and premium subsidies (the largest program cost item) have reached about $7 billion annually, accounting for about 60 percent of total crop insurance premiums.
The U.S. crop insurance program is unusual among U.S. agricultural programs in that it is delivered by the private sector. Insurance companies and agents sell and service policies that are obtained by producers. Insurance companies and agents compete in a highly regulated market for producer insurance business. The companies earn underwriting gains and receive administrative and operating subsidies and reinsurance on policies sold.
This presentation will examine the U.S. crop insurance experience with a focus on the incentives to producers and to private insurance companies.
About the Presenter:
Robert Dismukes recently retired as an agricultural economist at the Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. His research at ERS focused on U.S. agricultural policy and risk management, including issues of producer and private insurance company participation in federal crop insurance. After completing an undergraduate degree in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley he joined the Peace Corps in 1977 and worked on building construction and rural development projects in Botswana. He has a M.S. in agriculture and resource economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
About the Moderator:
Mark Cackler is the Manager of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank. Mr. Cackler joined the World Bank in 1981, after working as an Overseas Representative for John Deere Intercontinental, Ltd., based in Thailand. Initial assignments in the World Bank’s Washington headquarters included working in agriculture and natural resources divisions for East Africa, China, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. In 1988, he transferred to the Agriculture Unit of the World Bank's New Delhi Office. Following his return to headquarters from India in 1992, Mr. Cackler joined the Latin America and Caribbean Region. In 2000 he was appointed as the Manager, Agriculture and Rural Development for Latin America. In February 2007 Mr. Cackler was appointed Manager of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank, where he oversees World Bank’s global programs for rural poverty alleviation, agriculture and natural resources management.
About the Discussant
Daniel Clarke is a senior Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance (DRFI) specialist in the World Bank-GFDRR DRFI Program. His work on agricultural insurance has been predominantly in Asia and Africa, and since 2008 he has been part of the core team providing NLTA on agricultural insurance to the Government of India. His work spans the activities of the DRFI Program where he coordinates the Agricultural Insurance Development Program (an FPD-led initiative in partnership with AES and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the Sovereign DRFI Impact Appraisal Project, and the DRFI Analytics workstream. Before joining the World Bank he spent four years working as a private sector actuarial consultant, followed by six years lecturing in financial mathematics and financial contracting in developing countries at the University of Oxford. Dr Clarke has a first class degree from Cambridge University in Mathematics in Computer Science and a D.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.