Modern agricultural insurance, how far are we from you?

"in the past, I didn't have a strong sense of insurance. I mainly relied on the government to mobilize my insurance. Later, after a typhoon, I suffered heavy losses. I felt I had to buy insurance. I have been taking out insurance on my own initiative in the past few years, and last year I fully insured 230 hectares of arable land transferred. " Guo Qinglian, chairman of the Dayangzi Agricultural Cooperative in Dehui City, Jilin Province, represents the aspirations of many farmers.

Agriculture is a weak industry, especially at present, the moderate scale operation of agriculture in China is developing rapidly, and the natural risks, market risks and quality and safety risks of agriculture are constantly accumulating, which urgently needs the protection of agricultural insurance. However, due to the low starting point and weak foundation, China's agricultural insurance can not well meet the needs of modern agricultural development, and there are some problems, such as low insurance depth, single insurance products, imperfect subsidy system and so on.

Under the new situation and new requirements of agricultural modernization, how should agricultural insurance be adjusted and transformed?

Policy promotion, technological innovation and agricultural insurance are constantly "raising standards and expanding areas".

"there is now grain insurance in rural areas, and farmers can get due compensation when they are affected by the disaster. In April last year, our township suffered a large area of hail disaster, most of them received due insurance claims, and the income did not decline. " Fan Yongdong, Dongzhai Village, Lou Gou Xiang, Pianguan County, Xinzhou City, Shanxi Province, said. What Fan Yongdong saw reflected from the side the outstanding achievements made in the construction of China's agricultural insurance.

It is understood that in 2015, the number of major crops insured in China exceeded 1.45 billion mu, accounting for 59 percent of the country's sown area, and the average underwriting coverage of the three major grain crops exceeded 70 percent. Agricultural insurance has played an important "stabilizer" role in stabilizing agricultural production and increasing farmers' income. What is particularly gratifying is that in practice, agricultural insurance is no longer just a kind of risk compensation, but also highlights the functions of active disaster prevention and reduction, even production regulation, guarantee and credit enhancement and social management. It can be said that the function of agricultural insurance is being further expanded and has become a more and more important part of China's agricultural support and protection system.

In order to promote agricultural insurance to support agriculture and benefit agriculture, insurance regulatory departments also actively innovate the supervision mode. Chen Wenhui, vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, pointed out that the state pays more and more attention to agricultural insurance, and agricultural insurance is facing the best opportunity for development. The next step is to take "expanding, raising standards, and increasing products" as the core, consolidate the fundamentals, cover the whole field, steadily raise standards, and work together to create an upgraded version of agricultural insurance in the new era.

"the innovative project evaluation mechanism established by the CIRC last year has greatly stimulated the company's innovation motivation, ensured the company's compliance operation, and proved the effectiveness of the mechanism." Shi Jian, president of Anxin Agricultural Insurance Co., Ltd.

The remarkable achievements of agricultural insurance depend not only on policy promotion, but also on technological innovation. Luo Haiping, chairman of China United property Insurance Co., Ltd., said: "through the establishment of a new technology application system for planting insurance, efforts will be made to solve the problems of difficulty in surveying, determining losses and slow aging in large-scale agricultural disasters, and to investigate and settle claims in the most convenient way, which has played an important role in the investigation and verification of major natural disasters."

The degree of protection is not enough, and insurance products need to be improved.

"Farmers' insurance awareness is low, compensation expectations are high, and there are some deviations in ideas, coupled with claims settlement standards, operational difficulties and other reasons, grass-roots crop insurance is still very difficult." A manager of an insurance company in Baise, Guangxi reflected to the reporter.

Not only that, Wang Jinbao, director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Agriculture, pointed out: "at present, the insurance signing rate between different types of insurance and different regions is very uneven, coupled with the difficulties in matching financial funds at the grass-roots level, and the proportion of insurance is relatively low. as a result, the government lacks the enthusiasm to take the initiative to expand agricultural insurance business."

"at present, the terms of agricultural insurance are not understood, and it is basically up to the insurance company to make more or less compensation. Moreover, at present, agricultural insurance is only covered for corn, rice and soybeans, and it is suggested that it be further extended to vegetables, melons and fruits, greenhouses and so on. " Guo Qinglian expressed the above wishes.

"A large farmer like me has a high input cost, and in the event of a major disaster, there will be huge losses. As a major grain grower, the direct investment in rice production per mu is about 850 yuan per mu, while according to the existing insurance policy, the compensation is only 360 yuan per mu, which is still too low. " Ding Qiaoyun, a large grain grower in Taoyuan County, Changde City, Hunan Province, said that it is suggested that the insurance for large households should be "pay less and pay more," and many large farmers can accept to pay more premiums to get higher protection.

In this regard, Kui Guozhu, a professor in the Department of Finance of the Capital University of Economics and Trade, believes that in addition to improving insurance products, agricultural insurance should implement a differential financial subsidy policy, gradually abolish financial support at the two levels in underdeveloped counties, especially in major grain-producing areas, and meet the requirements of new business entities with high input and high cost by raising the level of insurance security.

Guo Shengchen, president of China people's property Insurance Co., Ltd., also believes that we should promote and improve the top-level design of China's agricultural insurance and explore the establishment of a multi-level agricultural insurance security system. On the basis of basic insurance, the main body of agricultural production and operation can voluntarily purchase highly guaranteed agricultural insurance products; for agricultural products insurance with local characteristics, the central financial "reward and subsidy" policy should be implemented as soon as possible.

Using international experience for reference to improve the risk diversification mechanism

"the natural characteristics of agricultural production that are prone to disasters and disasters lead to the high risk and high volatility of agricultural insurance management; moreover, long-term, stable and sustainable agricultural insurance policies require. Therefore, how to effectively disperse risks and avoid business fluctuations is a key problem for countries to carry out agricultural insurance. " The relevant person in charge of the CIRC pointed out.

From the perspective of the international situation, developed countries have generally established a mechanism for risk diversification of agricultural disasters. It is understood that the United States, Japan, Spain and other countries have set up special agencies to support agricultural insurance and reinsurance in accordance with the law. The United States, which has the largest agricultural insurance market in the world, has greatly enhanced the enthusiasm and anti-risk ability of insurance companies to operate agricultural insurance since the government legislated in 1996 to provide stable reinsurance support by the Federal crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). As a result, the protection level and coverage of agricultural insurance in the United States have been rapidly improved.

Drawing lessons from international experience, China Agricultural Insurance Reinsurance Community (hereinafter referred to as "Agricultural Community") was formally established in November 2014. "since the central government implemented premium subsidies for agricultural insurance, agricultural reinsurance has provided a total of more than 600 billion yuan in risk protection and paid more than 15 billion yuan in reparations." Jiang Caishi, chairman of the members' meeting of the Agricultural Community, told reporters that at present, while providing adequate reinsurance protection for the industry, the Agricultural Community also provides professional technical support in serving new agricultural operators, innovating insurance products, and supporting agricultural insurance with local characteristics, and plays a more and more important role in promoting agricultural modernization of insurance services. Li Lisong, general manager of the management organization of the Agricultural Community, believes that the establishment and operation of the Agricultural Community is a mechanism innovation combined with international experience and China's practice. "in the future, we must ensure the independence and impartiality of the operation of the agricultural community, and expand the underwriting capacity and scope of reinsurance, so as to give full play to the cornerstone role of the agricultural community in stabilizing the agricultural insurance system." Chen Wenhui, vice chairman of the CIRC, stressed.