Agricultural insurance should become an important guarantee for targeted poverty alleviation
Recently, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission held a meeting to implement the spirit of the Central Poverty Alleviation Work Conference, designating agricultural insurance as one of the main directions for the insurance industry in the battle against poverty. Because agricultural production faces a high disaster risk coefficient, agricultural production and operation carry great risks, and for farming households in poor areas, a sudden natural disaster can push them back to the brink of poverty. In poverty alleviation work, making good use of agricultural insurance and giving it full play to provide a safety net for the production and operation of poor households can build an artificial barrier for targeted poverty alleviation.
Since the central government began subsidizing agricultural insurance premiums in 2007, China's agricultural insurance has developed rapidly and achieved remarkable results. The "2015 China Insurance Market Annual Report" recently released by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission shows that in 2014 agricultural insurance provided 1.66 trillion yuan in risk protection, underwrote 1.1 billion mu of major crops, with a coverage rate approaching 50%, and the coverage rate for major staple grain crops exceeded 65%. A few days ago, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission announced a comprehensive upgrade of 738 agricultural insurance products involving central government premium subsidies and covering 15 categories of crops and 6 categories of livestock and aquaculture varieties. This move means that agricultural insurance will have even greater potential in the future.
However, China's agricultural insurance is mainly policy-based agricultural insurance, and most commercial insurance institutions are unwilling to enter the agricultural insurance field, resulting in single agricultural insurance products, relatively high premiums, and limited coverage. Many poor areas cannot even access agricultural insurance services at all. At the same time, in the process of implementation, policy-based agricultural insurance suffers from problems such as insurance fraud, excessive subsidies, and inadequate supervision, and has not fully given play to the protective role that agricultural insurance should have. When farming households face natural disasters or accidents, they can only bear the losses alone.
Facing such a vulnerable group as the poor population, improving the protection level of agricultural insurance in poor areas requires top-level promotion from the top down, mobilizing and integrating the resources and strength of all parties. On the one hand, government departments should continue to expand the coverage of policy-based agricultural insurance, encourage poor farming households to participate in insurance, and let more farming households enjoy agricultural insurance services; on the other hand, relevant departments need to join forces to guide commercial insurance companies into rural areas and carry out agricultural insurance business in poor areas, so that they jointly shoulder the important task of poverty alleviation.
In fact, in areas where agricultural insurance develops relatively quickly, farming households not only receive claim funds and compensation when they suffer losses, but can also obtain more credit support from banks and other institutions. Compared with ordinary farming households, insured farming households have an additional layer of risk protection, which reduces financing risks, and banks are more willing to issue loans to them. Moreover, insurance institutions can use the branches of rural financial institutions to tap the market and expand agricultural insurance products. In this way, insurance and credit form a virtuous cycle effect. At present, some poor areas are already exploring a credit-based poverty alleviation model of “agricultural insurance + agricultural credit”, which precisely combines the advantages of both insurance and credit to help the poor population embark on the road to prosperity.
In addition, industrial poverty alleviation is one of the important means of targeted poverty alleviation, and developing specialty agriculture is the most feasible path for many poor areas to escape poverty. Therefore, in light of the characteristics of specialty agriculture, exploring specialty agricultural insurance products tailored to local conditions is a test of the innovation capability of agricultural insurance.
Therefore, we believe that to fully give play to the protective role of agricultural insurance in poverty alleviation, it is necessary to draw on the strength of multiple parties, not only solidly promoting policy-based agricultural insurance, but also encouraging more institutions and capital to enter the agricultural insurance field, expanding the coverage of agricultural insurance in poor areas, and stepping up innovation, so as to play an indispensable role in targeted poverty alleviation.