Secure your farming with this affordable agribusiness insurance product

What is more devastating for a farmer than a drought or heavy destructive floods that strike at a time crops are just beginning to bloom? Pretty nothing else. But this is the current situation in the country. Many farmers are reeling from the losses that have been occasioned by the on-going floods.

With the current climate change, weather is becoming more and more unpredictable, posing a challenge to the livelihood of small-scale farmers and food security in the country.

However, many farmers will often tend to shy away from insuring their farms or livestock. Evans Rabong’o, the Agribusiness Manager at APA Insurance attributes this shyness towards agribusiness insurance to lack of information, perception and unavailability of agribusiness insurance policies. “The majority of our farmers are in the rural areas while the insurance companies tend to concentrate in urban areas away from these farmers. To compound it all, most of our Kenyan farmers are illiterate and are easily swayed away by perceptions regarding insurance and its importance,” he says.

Currently, there are a number of crops and livestock insurance packages that you can get at an affordable rate. Bizna Kenya looked at some of the main things that these two insurance packages will cover:

Crop Insurance

• Multi-peril crop insurance – Covers crops on all mother nature events eg  Drought, Uncontrollable Pests And Diseases, Hailstone Damage, Flooding, Fire and Lightning, Earthquake, Explosion, Frost and Windstorm
• Named peril insurance – Covers against a few selected perils as a result of act of god.
• Greenhouse insurance – Cover for metallic structured greenhouses against fire and perils.
• Index based insurance – here The insurance payout is based on assessed by measuring and index that is assumed to proxy the actual losses. it includes
• Area yield Index Insurance (AYII)
• Weather Index Insurance (WII)
• Remote Sensing Index (e.g NDVI, Parametric, VHI)
• Forest insurance – Covers  trees grown for commercial purposes (fruits or timber) against  fire and natural disasters

Livestock Insurance

• Single animal cover – Covers zero grazed high value animals against death as a result of accidents, diseases out breaks, mercy slaughter etc.
• Poultry insurance – cover for poultry flocks. eg broilers and layers.
• Pet insurance – cover for animal pets eg dogs, cats, parrots etc
• Bloodstock insurance – cover for horses (polo and racing).
• Aquaculture insurance – cover for fish farming both pond and caged.

CALL APA INSURANCE TO GET AN AGRIBUSINESS COVER THROUGH: 020 286 2166  |  Mobile: 0722 965 838

According to Mr. rabong’o, the current insurance penetration stands at about 1 per cent “We like what the government is doing in disseminating awareness on the need for insurance through our private and public partnerships (PPP),” he says. Additionally, to encourage farmers to insure their crop and livestock, the plan by the government is to work with insurance companies and surveyors so it can pay half the cost, while the farmer pays the other half, making it cheaper for farmers.

To get an insurance cover for your farm, livestock or general agribusiness, you can reach Mr. Rabong’o through: [email protected]