SAN FRANCISCO and PEORIA, Ill. –WeatherBill, the pioneers in weather insurance and risk management, today announced the launch of the first full-season weather insurance program for U.S. farmers. Available for the 2011 crop year and designed to address the poor weather conditions frequently faced by growers, WeatherBill’s Total Weather Insurance represents a new, technology-enhanced approach to insurance that protects farmers against weather-related crop loss, providing them with unprecedented protection for their profits each season.
Created with insight from agronomists and growers nationwide, WeatherBill developed Total Weather Insurance to address growers’ exposure to financial loss even when they fully utilize federal crop insurance programs. Total Weather Insurance provides growers with the ability to lock in profits by covering their losses before the government’s coverage benefits begin. This enables farmers to effectively address a perennial challenge: poor weather, which is the cause of 90 percent of crop loss each year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA).
Research by the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) recently reported a dramatic increase in extreme weather events each year. As a result, growers are becoming increasingly exposed to significant crop losses, with exposure totaling tens of billions of dollars in the U.S. each year.
“These frequent extreme weather events expose U.S. growers to greater financial risk than ever before,” said DavidFriedberg, chief executive officer of WeatherBill and a former founding member of Google’s corporate development team. “Now, for the first time ever, growers can protect their profits from weather-related losses not covered by federal crop insurance with Total Weather Insurance.”
Available exclusively through qualified crop insurance agents, Total Weather Insurance fills the risk gap by enabling growers to insure against their real weather risk through Weatherbill’s simple-to-use, fully automated system. Growers can now dramatically reduce the impact that weather has on their businesses.
As part of the Total Weather Insurance program, WeatherBill offers growers and their crop insurance agents a free personalized WeatherBill Weather Risk Report that quickly identifies for a grower their expected range of profit-per-acre for the 2011 crop year and the key weather perils that typically cause financial loss, based on the grower’s crop, location, input costs, and federal crop insurance coverage levels. The report provides growers and agents with a Total Weather Insurance program recommendation designed to optimize the grower’s individual profit-per-acre for the 2011 crop year. Growers and crop insurance agents can visit http://www.weatherbill.com to get their free customized Weather Risk Report.
Total Weather Insurance benefits include:
“Every year we are exposed to a high level of risk from bad weather, even with our current federal crop insurance,” said Mark Stuckewho operates a 13,000-acre farm in Darke County, OH growing corn and soybeans. “We use WeatherBill to help us make sure we don't have a bad year, even if our yields are down significantly. We run our operation as a business, and for us WeatherBill insures us against a serious and unpredictable yearly threat: the weather.”
Editor’s Note: See related press release, “WeatherBill and ADM Crop Risk Services Announce Partnership to Protect Farmers’ Profits.”
