Crop Insurance Reminders

Crop Insurance Reminders. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Unfortunately there has been some damage of tree fruit in some areas of the state and Dave Paul, Director for the regional office of USDA’s Risk Management Agency has some reminders for Federal crop insured fruit growers. 

PAUL: I think the most important thing from my perspective is if anytime an insured producer see damage, the first thing they should do after they kind of assess the damages - if they’re insured get hold of the insurance company ASAP and then the second thing I tell folks is you need to follow that up in writing. So give your insurance agent a call, when you get home that night follow it up in writing, shoot them an email, drop them a letter whatever and say I’m giving you notice of damage.

Paul says the paper trail is very important in these cases. RMA has a number of different scenarios and timelines you can check out on their website depending on your situation.

PAUL: Probably the other thing that’s important when you get into some of the more severe damage where they got hit really hard by hail and they’re going to do something different - maybe they’re going to go in and get rid of the apples or cherries or whatever and just technically abandon them because there’s so much damage. Well before a producer does anything to that orchard or block of cherries, whatever, that’s something other than what they intended to do when they insured them is to get consent from the insurance company to do ahead and do that.

For more information contact your crop insurance agent or consult your insurance policy.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.