It would cover loanee and non-loanee farmers in Belgaum, Bellary, Haveri, Gadag, Dharwad, Bagalkote, Bijapur, Yadgir and Bidar districts.
The company would provide cover to the crops for Kharif season in 2012, which were under the rain-fed and irrigated category. The former category includes blackgram, groundnut, tur, soyabean, sunflower, jowar, greengram, maize, onion, cotton, ragi, chilly and potato and the latter comprises onion, chilli and cotton.
The weather-based crop insurance scheme would provide cover against losses to these crops caused due to excess and deficit rainfall, fluctuations in daily temperature and humidity. This scheme will facilitate immediate compensation based on certified data collected from independent third-party bodies such as KSNDMC (Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre) weather stations installed in the notified districts of Karnataka. This transparent and objective method of claim settlement removes the need for carrying outfield surveys. This is a unique insurance scheme, where the beneficiary is not required to file a claim for loss to receive a payout, instead ICICI Lombard proactively intimates and settles the claim amount to the beneficiary based on certified data collected from independent third-party bodies.
The insurance, an index-based product, has been successfully adopted in 11 states covering as many as 26 varieties of crops. In 2009, the company received the Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award for the technological innovation in the claim settlement process for weather insurance products.
In 2011-12, over 22 lakh farmers with 36 lakh hectares of land across 12 states were covered by ICICI Lombard. Of these, 11 lakh farmers and nearly 22 lakh hectares of land were covered during the Kharif 11 season. In the Rabi 11-12 season, the company insured 4,000 farmers and close to 10,000 hectares of land in Karnataka.
Alok Agarwal, executive director, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, explains, “Agriculture is a significant contributor to the Indian economy accounting for 14% of the Indian GDP. The rural economy faces economic strain due to the variability in agriculture production and weather insurance protects the farmer against financial loss arising out of adverse weather conditions. We consider it to be our privilege to have been chosen to provide weather-based crop insurance farmers in Karnataka. ICICI Lombard believes in providing a fair and hassle-free service to its customers and the process has been made as objective as possible with third-party government agencies monitoring the process.”
