Agricultural Insurance Company Of India Limited

Freak weather incidents are becoming increasingly frequent .This makes farming more risky nowadays.Add to that,modern farming is more capital intensive.So it makes sense to protect one’s investment with crop/weather insurance.

IFFCO-Tokio’s weather insurance is better publicized.But there is one other private alternative: ICICI-Lombard’s Weather Insurance.However the lion’s share of the covers are provided by the Agricultural Insurance Company Of India (AIC).

AIC was incorporated on 20 December 2002 with an authorised capital of Rs. 1500 crore. The initial paid-up capital was Rs. 200 crores, which was subscribed by the promoting companies, General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) (35%), NABARD (30%) and the four public-sector general insurance companies (8.75% each), viz., National Insurance Co. Ltd., Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd., New India Assurance Co. Ltd., and United India Insurance Co. Ltd. AIC is under the administrative control of Ministry of Finance, Government of India, and under the operational supervision of Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.

All farmers who avail of agricultural loans from banks are automatically covered by the AIC. But other non-loanee farmers too can be voluntarily covered by the AIC Schemes by submitting proposal forms and premium cheques to the same banks which disperse agricultural loans.The IRDA has issued special permission for the 4 public insurance companies to resell the products of the AIC. United India Insurance has already started reselling these schemes.

So go ahead and buy crop or weather insurance if you decide to farm.The process is far from hassle free but this is the only one way of protecting the bulk of your working capital.Here is a list of products currently offered by the AIC: Products List