Crop Insurance FAQs

The Federal Crop sales closing deadline is the last date to apply for coverage or change coverage for any federal crop insurance policy. The date is March 15 each year. Review our Dates and Deadlines for more information throughout the year.

Revenue Protection (RP) insurance protects for a certain level of revenue rather than just production. It protects you from declines in both crop prices and yields. The protection is based on market prices and your APH (Actual Production History).

Revenue Protection policies can be written so that the level of the revenue protection is determined solely by the February futures prices (base prices), and does not increase even if the futures price rises by harvest (harvest prices).

You may elect to purchase insurance without the harvest price option (RP-HPE). The RP-HPE policy carries a lower premium than the RP policy. A claim for indemnity uses the harvest price to determine your harvest revenue.

Learn more about the different federal crop insurance products available.

This review process is typically done during harvest season. This will take place if you have a loss exceeding the threshold of $200,000 for a specific crop in a specific county. The purpose of the review is to validate reported production, which means a variety of documents can be utilized, including settlement sheets, load records, bin measurements, loss papers, livestock feeding records or other approved records that would verify acres and production.

Your main responsibility is to provide three years of verifiable production evidence for the units of the crop being reviewed. Claims for the current crop year will not be paid until this process is complete. This could delay receiving a payment at a time that many farmers have cash flow constraints resulting from the drought. 

Corn, soybean and wheat producers who purchase crop insurance by the sales closing date have the option to elect the Trend-Adjusted APH Option (TA-APH). This  program, sponsored by the Illinois Corn Marketing Board and Integrated Financial Analytics and Research, adjusts eligible yields, in qualifying APH databases, to reflect long term increases in the county’s historical yield. Check with your local crop representative to see if you qualify and determine your county yield factor.

The High Risk options are as follows:

• To insure the high risk acres on your buy-up policy and pay the high risk rates.
• To exclude the high risk acres by signing the High Risk Land Exclusion by the sales closing deadline (no coverage for these acres).
• To exclude the high risk acres by signing the high risk land exclusion by sales closing deadline and then adding a Catastrophic (CAT) coverage for those high risk acres by sales closing deadline.
• To submit a "Request for Actuarial Change" to try and get RMA to lower the rate.
• To sign the High Risk-Alternate Coverage Endorsement (HR-ACE) by sales closing deadline (March 15). This option allows you to exclude the high-risk land from the base policy and buy a higher level of individual coverage than CAT on this excluded high-risk land. The coverage must be at a lower level than the non-high-risk land and is by crop by county basis.
• As always check with your local crop representative to see if you qualify.

Federal Crop premium statements will be mailed out in September each year and are due at the end of the month. If they are not paid by the end of the month interest will be charged each month at 1.25% until they are paid.