Cattle Insurance was governed under Market Agreement as devised by GIC and the rates, terms, conditions etc. all were applicable to all the four Insurance Companies. However, w.e.f May 2003, it is no longer under Market Agreement. This policy covers indigenous cross bred and exotic cattle owned by private owners, various financial institutions, dairy farms, cooperatives, corporate dairies etc. The word cattle include Milch, Cows and Buffaloes calves and heifers, stud bulls, bullocks and he-buffaloes and mistunes. Age group is specified for all the animals.
SHEEP AND GOAT INSURANCE
This scheme is also governed under Market Agreement. Policy provides indemnity to indigenous cross-bred and exotic sheep and goat against death due to accident
(including fire, lightening, flood, cyclone, famine, strike, riot and civil commotion) and disease. Earthquake and landslide
Covers are also provided. Standard and common exclusions apply as per Cattle Policy. Animals are identified by means of small brass buttons ear tags. Animals under scheme category enjoy certain benefits in premium rate and claim
CAMEL INSURANCE
The camels are covered against death due to accident or disease as per Standard Cattle Insurance Policy. The maximum S.I. is restricted to Rs.3000/-.
PIG INSURANCE
All indigenous, cross-bred and exotic pigs are covered however under scheme category exotic animals are not covered. The age group is from 4 months to 3 years. The coverage is against death due to accident or disease.Exclusions as per
Cattle Policy apply here also. Permanent total disablement, breeding and furrowing risks are not covered. Vaccination in applicable diseases is compulsory. Evaluation depends upon the age of the animal. Animals are identified by means of small brass buttons ear tags.
HORSE, MULE, DONKEY, PONY, YAK INSURANCE
The Coverage is as per Standard Cattle Policy. However the age group is restricted to 2 years to 8 years.
AGRICULTURAL INSURANCE SCHEMES
Different forms of experiments on agricultural insurance on a limited, ad- hoc and scattered scale started from 1972-73 when the General Insurance Corporation (GIC) of India introduced a Crop Insurance Scheme on H-4 cotton. In the same year, general insurance business was nationalized and,
General Insurance Corporation of India was set respect of H-4 cotton. This scheme was based on “Individual Approach” and later up by an Act of Parliament. The new corporation took over the experimental scheme in included groundnut, wheat and potato. The scheme was implemented in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. It continued up to 1978-79 and covered only 3110 farmers for a premium of Rs.4.54 lakh against claims of Rs.37.88 lakh.
POULTRY INSURANCE
This is also governed by Market Agreement, amongst all the four subsidiary companies. The policy shall provide indemnity against death of birds due to accident (including fire, lightning, flood, cyclone, strike, riot and civil commotion and terrorism) or diseases contracted or occurring during the period of insurance. The word Poultry includes layers, broilers and hatchery birds, which are exotic and cross-bred.
DUCK INSURANCE APPLICABILITY
i. All types of Migratory and Non-migratory birds in India. ii. Duck farms consisting of minimum of 100 ducks for non- IRDP and 50 ducks for IRDP and other Government
subsidized schemes.
Note: All birds in Duckery Farm should be insured Duck Insurance Scheme shall provide indemnity against death of ducks due to accident including lightning, flood, cyclone, famine, riot and strike, civil commotion or diseases contracted or occurring during the period of insurance.
ELEPHANT INSURANCE
This scheme is applicable to elephants used for commercial and religious purposes. This policy covers death due to disease or accident and the coverage is given from 5 to 60 years of age. Identification is done from the records of forest
department of the State Govt. and also by measuring the trunk of each elephant. Valuation of the elephant varies from breed to breed, area to area and time to time. Exclusions are as per Cattle Market agreement and some specific exclusion are as per policy schedule. Company indemnifies the insured only 80% of market value or sum insured whichever is less.
FAILED WELL INSURANCE
The scheme is applicable only to those wells financed by banks where re-financing by NABARD is involved and in other case where wells are financed by a nationalized bank but not re-financed by NABARD, approval of Head Office is must .Sum Insured, premium, perils covered and exclusions are different in both the schemes and as per policy schedule
HONEYBEE INSURANCE SCHEME
This policy is to cover beehives and/or colonies belonging to individual, cooperative societies and those sponsored and subsidized under various projects of respective State and Central Government against total loss damage to beehives
and/or bee colonies as a result of an accident caused by fire, flood, inundation, storm, tempest, cyclone, hurricane and tornado. This cover is only for Indian Honeybee and Italian Honeybee. Sum insured depends upon the cost of Beehives as given by the respective state KVIC Board
Crop insurance
Crop insurance is purchased by Rural producers, including farmers, ranchers, and others to protect themselves against either the loss of their crops due to natural disasters, such as hail, drought, and floods, or the loss of revenue due to declines in the prices of Rural commodities. The two general categories of crop insurance are called crop-yield insurance and crop-revenue insurance.
• Crop-hail insurance is generally available from private insurers (in countries with private sectors) because hail is a narrow peril that occurs in a limited place and its accumulated losses tend not to overwhelm the capital reserves of private insurers. The earliest crop-hail programs were begun by farmer’s cooperatives in France and Germany in the 1820s.
• Multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI): covers the broad perils of drought, flood, insects, disease, etc., which may affect many insureds at the same time and present the insurer with excessive losses. To make this class of insurance, the perils are often bundled together in a single policy, called a multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI) policy. MPCI coverage is usually offered by a government insurer and premiums are usually partially subsidized by the government. The earliest MPCI program was first implemented by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), an agency of the U.S. Department of Rural, in 1938. The FCIC program has been managed by the Risk Management Agency (RMA), also a U.S. Department of Rural agency, since 1996.
o Crop-revenue insurance: is a combination of crop-yield insurance and price insurance. For example, RMA establishes crop-revenue insurance guarantees on corn by multiplying each farmer's corn- yield guarantee, which is based on the farmer's own production history, times the harvest-time futures price discovered at a commodity exchange before the policy is sold and the crop planted. There is a single guarantee for a certain number of dollars. The policy pays an indemnity if the combination of the actual yield and the cash settlement price in the futures market is less than the guarantee. In the United States, the program is called Crop Revenue Coverage.
o Crop-revenue insurance covers the decline in price that occurs during the crop's growing season. It does not cover declines that may occur from one growing season to another. That would be called "price support," and would raise a series of complex Rural-policy and international-trade issues.
Health insurance for the rural poor ?
For most people living in developing countries “health insurance” is an unknown word. It is generally assumed that, with the exception of the upper classes, people cannot afford such type of social protection. This is a pity as also poor people demand protection against the financial consequences of illnesses. For most people living in poor developing countries illness still represents a permanent threat to their income earning capacity. Beside the direct costs for treatment and drugs, indirect costs for the missing labor force of the ill and the occupying person have to be shouldered by the household. Health insurance schemes are an increasingly recognized factor as a tool to finance health care provision in low income countries. Given the high latent demand from people for healthcare services of a good quality and the extreme under-utilization of health services in several countries, it has been argued that social health insurance may improve the access to health care of acceptable quality. Whereas alternative forms of health care financing and cost recovery strategies like user fees have been heavily criticized, the option of insurance seems to be a promising alternative as it is a possibility to pool risk transferring, unforeseeable health care costs to fixed premiums. Recently, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa but also in a variety of other countries, non-profit, mutual, community-based health insurance schemes have emerged. These schemes are characterized by an ethic of mutual aid, solidarity and the collective pooling of health risks. In several countries these schemes operate in conjunction with health care providers, mainly hospitals in the area.
Against this background the Center for Development Research (ZEF-Bonn) analyses within his research program on social security systems in rural areas the
prospects and limitations of innovative health insurance schemes. In close collaboration with national research institutes empirical studies are currently being carried out in Ethiopia, China, Ghana, India, Senegal and
Tanzania. The aim of these projects is to estimate demand for health care and health insurance, quantify economic and social impacts, as well as identifying factors of success and failure. The studies focus on rural areas because here the need for insurance is especially, but private insurance markets do not exist and public measures often fail to reach their target population.