Beneficial changes for farmers made to crop insurance

SPRING VALLEY, Ill. — Major changes have been made to crop insurance that will reduce the cost and provide more coverage for farmers.

"Today is a positive day, the insurance premiums are coming down," said Greg Brucker, crop insurance agent with Strategic Farm Marketing and Crop Insurance. "I don't know what else has come down in your budget this year."

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July, provided changes that include increasing the subsidies for Supplemental Coverage Option and the Enhanced Coverage Option from 65% to 80%.

"That is a big deal because that decreased premiums quite a bit," said Brucker during a SFM Risk Management Seminar.

The bill also increased the underlying subsidies for Revenue Protection, Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion and Yield Protection plans, from 3% to 5%.

Both the Agriculture Risk Coverage and the Price Loss Coverage received updates for this year.

"The ARC coverage level increased to 90% and the coverage range rose to 12%," Brucker said. "And the PLC reference prices increased."

Beginning farmers will also benefit from the changes made by the bill.

"The beginning farmer benefits used to go for five years and now it is extended to 10 years," Brucker said. "The discount starts at 15% and at 10 years the discount is 10%."

Strategic Farm Marketing works with nine insurance companies, which gives farmers a lot of options when choosing crop insurance for their operations.

"We want to make your farming life simple, not more complicated," said Dave Janson, president of the company that was established in 1985 in Champaign in east-central Illinois.

Choosing between ARC or PLC coverage is one of many decisions facing farmers.

"You would normally have to make this decision by March 15, but they suspended that indefinitely," Janson said. "So, you might not have to make that decision until you know what the 2026 crop looks like."

ARC-County uses an Olympic average yield and price. The Olympic average removes the highest and lowest value and averages the remaining three values.

For example, in Bureau County, using years 2020 to 2024, for corn the 2026 Olympic average yield is 233.1 bushels and the Olympic average price is $5.03.

Soybean numbers for 2026 in Bureau County are an Olympic average yield of 70.8 bushels and Olympic average price of $12.17.

"The Olympic average yield and price are compared to the harvest yield and market year average cash price," Brucker said. "The market year average price is weighted based on actual farmer sales, so historically by the end of January 56% of the corn price is set and 68% of the soybean price is set."

ECO is county-based and it uses Risk Management Agency county yields that are released June 15.

"ECO has a selectable protection factor that reduces premium and indemnity without impacting the indemnity trigger," Brucker said. "It can be purchased with ARC or PLC and with or without SCO."

Farmers can elect ECO by county and by crop.

"If you lower your revenue protection, you are also lowering your individual farm's guarantee and prevent plant coverage," the crop insurance agent.

In an example for corn in Bureau County, Brucker said, the 95% ECO premium was $26.14 for 2024 and in 2026 the premium is down to $9.34 per acre.

"SCO no longer requires the producer to elect PLC; either ARC or PLC can be elected," he reported.

"SCO historical performance for corn in Bureau County shows 36% of the time the claim covered the premium," he said. "The premium was $6.82 for corn in 2025 and in 2026 it is $3.90 in this county."

In comparing enterprise versus optional coverage, for enterprise unit coverage, losses from each field are combined and may offset one another. For optional unit coverage, losses from each field are separate from one another.

For example, if field one has a $10,000 loss, field two has a $20,000 profit, field three has a $30,000 loss and field four has a $5,000 profit, the enterprise unit policy would have a claim of $15,000.

However, for the optional unit policy claim, since there is no claim on the fields that made money, only the two fields with losses are counted for a claim of $40,000.

"There is a product for soybeans called 'ECO Plus Yield 100' that locks up 100% of the actual production history on an optional unit basis," Janson said. "Every unit stands alone, and guys that took this last year, I only had two policies out of 100 that did not collect."

Only a 1-bushel drop below the APH, the company president said, would pay the premium of this product.

"With a 2-bushel drop, the claim would pay the entire premium," he said.

Hail coverage protects against hail damage, field fires, stored grain, vandalism, grain in transit and grain bags.

"If you are going to do wind coverage, the deductible matters and I want someone who scouts their fields often for wind damage," Janson said. "If you buy 0% deductible, you have money coming to you even if a stalk or two is broken."

Wind plans protect against wind damage and greensnap.

"Wind is a big deal — with 0% basic plan, 10% damage will pay $100,000," Janson said.

"There are thousands of ways to look at your crop insurance," he said. "I know it is complicated, but we can build a tool to figure it out."

Strategic Farm Marketing offers information, access to products and content experts through its 65 agents.

"We insure almost 3 million acres and our footprint continues to grow one farmer at a time," Janson said. "We have done this by never buying an agency."