Global crop insurance: rising exposures, strains on public budgets temper resilience gains

The resilience of global agriculture is under pressure. Swiss Re Institute’s global Crop Insurance Resilience Index (CIRI) reading for 2024 stands at 45%, translating into a crop protection gap (in absolute terms) of close to USD 76 billion, up from USD 73 billion in 2023. Around 55% of global insurable crop value remains unprotected, even with improvements insurance penetration over the years.

Structural forces like changing climates, commodity price volatility and geopolitical uncertainty have made farmers around the world more vulnerable to losses. In parallel, elevated levels of public debt and fiscal deficits are constraining the state funding needed for the proper functioning of agro-insurance systems. About a quarter of economic  losses inflicted by natural catastrophes fall on the agriculture sector, and drought events cause more than half of those losses.

Find out more about agriculture sector resilience with a focus in the world's four largest agriculture producing countries – China, India, the US and Brazil – in a new Swiss Re Institute research report available in full from the sigma explorer portal.