Global Agriculture

Global trends increase the importance of agricultural reinsurance -  With the global population reaching eight billion in the upcoming years, the need to secure food production has become more important than ever before. Competition on food resources has increased, while arable land is shrinking and global food commodity prices are rising.  An increase in the frequency and severity of natural catastrophes has led to a growing demand to mitigate the risks farmers face, and help them better react to unforeseen events.

Crop Indemnity Insurance -  in particular multi-peril crop insurance - is an important tool to respond to these requirements both from an individual farmers' as well as from national and global perspectives.

Parametric insurance serves as a substitute or supplement for indemnity based products such as single / named-perils or multi-perils insurance.  The indemnification of parametric products is based on a climatic or agronomic variable of parametric that mimics the Insured's crop partially or fully during the phenological phases.  The variable can be obtained by using weather station information, satellite information, yield statistics or a combination thereof.  Without a lengthy loss adjustment process, the insured gets compensated for his / her sustained yield loss through a straight-forward loss settlement process and loss payments made within a few days or weeks after policy expiration.

Global livestock production is increasing globally due to growing population and change in diets towards animal-based products such as meat, milk and eggs. Livestock farmers are exposed to many risks which depend on type of livestock, farms size and local geographical conditions (i.e. exposure to endemic and epidemic diseases).  

Traditional livestock insurance covers mortality due to accident and non-contagious diseases. Cover can be extended to epidemic diseases when animals are culled on governmental order and livestock owner are indemnified for the animal value and/or Business Interruption costs.

New and specific products cover for example shortage of fodder by an index on drought or on the vegetation. There is also a trend towards margin/revenue cover which guarantee a minimal price or gross margin.

Similarly to human health insurances, pet insurances aim to protect the pet owners (or pet parents) from unexpected and expensive medical treatments.  Depending on the level of coverage, we differentiate between the following main product types - Accident Only, Time Limited, Maximum Benefit and Lifetime products.  The pet owners are usually compensated for medical expenses, purchase price (in case the pet is stolen), hospital visits, kennel and cattery fees (should the pet need to stay for recovery), death from illness or injury, theft or loss, complementary treatments, advertising costs and rewards.

Aquaculture is a  growing indudstry worldwide - in the past 15 years the volume of production doubled.  Aquaculture insurance typically covers mortality of fish stock caused by storm, disease, algae bloom, pollution, contamination, collision, theft, predators, malicious damage and change in water conditions.  In addition, also the structures (e.g. cages, nets, feeding systems, etc) are included in the same insurance policy.  Currently, most  aquaculture insurances cover caged fish farms (e.g. salmon farms), but as the share of inland aquaculture and recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) grows significantly faster, the insurance industry will react to this and develop solutions to manage those risks too.

Driven by land scape value maximization and the need to speed up production of export quality crops in a controlled environment that incorproates state of the art technology, some farming enterprises have gone for greenhouse product of high values crops such as flowers and other horticultural crops.  Greenhouse production can be split into sections as follows: structure (usually steel or aluminium); cladding (usually plastic or glass); crops (usually floriculture and horticulture); irrigation system (usually drippers or fine spray): cold rooms (compressors for temperature control); and transit of produce for the farm to the airport for export (by own refrigerating vehicle or hired one).  All these sections can be subjected to losses due to perils such as fire, windstorm, hailstorm, theft, animal damage, the breakdown of compressors in the cold rooms, and vehicle accidents in transit.

The Allianz agriculture portfolio is underwritten worldwide, with underwriting capacity provided to both mature and emerging markets.  Key clients are often semi-governmental organizations such as agriculture insurers acting in a public private partnership.  We also work with private companies either as specialized monoliners or as multiline companies.

Within Agriculture, Allianz Re writes the following business subclasses:
- crop
- livestock
- bloodstock
- pet
- forestry
- aquaculture