Crop insurance covered about 89% of the acreage planted to eight major U.S. field crops in the 2024 crop year. The Federal Crop Insurance Program insured 543 million acres and carried more than $192 billion in liability, while drought and high temperature accounted for about 41% of indemnities over 2000–2024. These figures show the scale of the market, the public cost of participation, and the weather risks most often associated with payments.
Contents
- Participation and insured acreage
- Liability, premiums, subsidies, and program costs
- The nationwide 2024 portfolio
- Plan-level scale and financial outcomes
- Indemnities and causes of loss
- Coverage levels and product reach
Participation and insured acreage
The Federal Crop Insurance Program has become a central risk-management mechanism for U.S. agriculture. In the 2024 crop year, about 89% of the acreage of eight major field crops was enrolled. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS) reports that this enrollment rate was 52 percentage points higher than in 1990, making the long-run change one of the clearest indicators of the program’s reach. (Risk Management – Crop Insurance at a Glance)
The program also covers a broad commodity base. USDA offered crop insurance for more than 120 unique agricultural commodities in crop year 2024. The insured acreage trend has expanded substantially as well: federal crop-insurance insured acreage increased from 206 million acres in 2000 to 296 million acres in 2013, then reached 543 million acres in 2024. (Risk Management – Crop Insurance at a Glance)
Forage is especially important when acreage is measured across the entire program. Forage crops represented 19% of insured acreage in 2016 and 56% in 2024. The ERS chart on program type reports nearly 550 million U.S. crop-insurance acres in the 2025 crop year. The 2025 figure is presented as a chart value, while the 2024 figure above is reported directly as 543 million acres; the two should not be treated as identical measurements. (Acres covered under crop insurance by program type)
Liability, premiums, subsidies, and program costs
Scale is also visible in the value protected. Federal Crop Insurance Program liability exceeded $192 billion in 2024. Row crops accounted for 65% of that liability, livestock and animal products accounted for almost 18%, and forage crops accounted for 4%. These shares describe the composition of program liability, not the share of insured acreage. (Risk Management – Crop Insurance at a Glance)
Federal premium subsidies totaled $10.4 billion in 2024. Federal program-delivery costs were $2.34 billion, and underwriting gains paid to approved insurance providers were $2.31 billion. Together, these measures separate three different parts of the program’s financial structure: support toward premiums, the cost of delivering the program, and payments associated with underwriting results. They should not be added to the liability figure, which represents the value insured rather than an expenditure. (Risk Management – Crop Insurance at a Glance)
Average annual Federal Crop Insurance Program outlays were $11.7 billion during 2015–2024. For the earlier 2006–2014 period, the reported average was $8.04 billion per year. The periods are not the same length and the figures are period averages, so they describe different time windows rather than a single-year budget comparison. (Risk Management – Crop Insurance at a Glance)
The nationwide 2024 portfolio
The Risk Management Agency’s nationwide summary by insurance plan provides a separate view of the 2024 crop year. The table was reported as of September 21, 2026, so its figures should be read with that as-of date in mind. It recorded 2,364,877 policies sold, including 1,218,361 policies earning premium and 535,559 policies with indemnities. The same table recorded 2,866,902 units earning premium and 1,168,374 units with indemnities.
The nationwide summary also reported 59,364,955 companion or endorsed acres and a report-level amount of $947,195,924. Its financial totals were $158,673,635,543 in liability, $15,882,476,074 in total premium, $9,881,430,227 in premium subsidy, and $15,170,340,960 in indemnities. The grand-total loss ratio in the table was 0.96. (Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Commodity Year Statistics for 2024 — Nationwide Summary by Insurance Plan)
| Nationwide 2024 measure | Reported total |
|---|---|
| Policies sold | 2,364,877 |
| Policies earning premium | 1,218,361 |
| Policies with indemnities | 535,559 |
| Units earning premium | 2,866,902 |
| Units with indemnities | 1,168,374 |
| Liability | $158,673,635,543 |
| Total premium | $15,882,476,074 |
| Premium subsidy | $9,881,430,227 |
| Indemnities | $15,170,340,960 |
| Grand-total loss ratio | 0.96 |
The RMA summary and ERS overview use different reported totals and measures. The RMA plan table’s $158.7 billion liability is a nationwide plan-table total as of September 21, 2026, while ERS reports Federal Crop Insurance Program liability above $192 billion for the 2024 crop year. Because the source descriptions and scopes differ, the figures should be kept as separate reported measures rather than combined or substituted for one another.
Plan-level scale and financial outcomes
Revenue Protection (RP) was the largest named plan in the 2024 RMA summary. RP recorded 1,583,933 policies sold, $104,835,774,131 in liability, $10,293,779,103 in total premium, and $8,621,047,500 in indemnities. Yield Protection (YP) recorded 259,783 policies sold and $8,214,710,840 in liability.
Other plans show how the portfolio extends beyond the largest revenue product. Actual Production History (APH) recorded $19,280,554,564 in liability. Whole-Farm Revenue Protection (WFRP) recorded $2,944,621,906, Area Risk Protection (ARP) recorded $412,133,764, and Stacked Income Protection (STAX) RP recorded $719,878,245. All are 2024 crop-year figures from the RMA plan table, reported as of September 21, 2026. (Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Commodity Year Statistics for 2024 — Nationwide Summary by Insurance Plan)
| Insurance plan | 2024 reported measure |
|---|---|
| Revenue Protection policies sold | 1,583,933 |
| Revenue Protection liability | $104,835,774,131 |
| Revenue Protection total premium | $10,293,779,103 |
| Revenue Protection indemnities | $8,621,047,500 |
| Yield Protection policies sold | 259,783 |
| Yield Protection liability | $8,214,710,840 |
| Actual Production History liability | $19,280,554,564 |
| Whole-Farm Revenue Protection liability | $2,944,621,906 |
| Area Risk Protection liability | $412,133,764 |
| Stacked Income Protection RP liability | $719,878,245 |
These plan-level values are reported totals. They indicate relative scale within the RMA summary, but the available figures do not establish a complete ranking of every plan or explain every difference between plan totals and the nationwide program totals.
Indemnities and causes of loss
Weather-related risks dominate the long-run causes of indemnified losses. From 2000 through 2024, drought and high temperature accounted for about 41% of U.S. crop-insurance indemnities. Excessive moisture accounted for about 27%, and low temperature accounted for about 7%. Together, these three reported categories represented about three-quarters of indemnities over the period, based on the supplied percentages; the source does not provide a full category list here. (Risk Management – Questions & Answers)
Drought and high temperature were the leading cause of indemnified losses in 14 of the 25 years from 2000 through 2024. Over the same 2000–2024 period, annual crop-insurance indemnity payments increased by an average of 17% per year. This is a reported average annual increase across the period, not a statement that payments rose by exactly 17% in every year. (Risk Management – Crop Insurance at a Glance)
The Federal Crop Insurance Program’s annual loss ratio averaged 0.85 from 1997 through 2024. That long-run average covers a different period from the 2000–2024 cause-of-loss figures and from the 2024 nationwide plan-table loss ratio of 0.96. The three measurements therefore answer different questions: long-run program performance, the distribution of indemnified causes, and the reported 2024 nationwide plan-table result. (Risk Management – Crop Insurance at a Glance; Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Commodity Year Statistics for 2024)
Coverage levels and product reach
In 2024, producers were responsible on average for 38% of their crop-insurance policy premiums. Standard yield-insurance coverage levels range from 50% to 75% of average yield and can reach 85% in some areas. For yield insurance, the selected indemnity price can range from 60% to 100% of the annually established crop price. (Farm & Commodity Policy – Title XI: Crop Insurance Program Provisions)
Catastrophic Risk Protection (CAT) has lower stated protection parameters: it pays indemnities at 55% of the established commodity price when farm yield losses exceed 50%. The CAT administrative fee is $655 for each crop insured in each county, under the policy parameter described after the 2018 Farm Act. These are policy parameters, not estimates of average producer payments.
Product availability also varies by insurance type. Hurricane Insurance Protection–Wind Index coverage is available for more than 70 crops. Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage insurance covered the 48 contiguous states in 2016. The same ERS material states that the program covered those 48 states in 2016 and added Hawaii beginning with the 2025 crop year. (Farm & Commodity Policy – Title XI: Crop Insurance Program Provisions)
These coverage and reach statistics put the participation figures in context. High enrollment among major field-crop acreage coexists with different protection levels, premium responsibilities, fees, and geographic availability across products. The reported numbers describe the federal program’s structure and scale; they do not predict an individual farm’s premium, coverage choice, or indemnity.