State crop insurance firm issues P10B worth of policies in 2012

The Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. generated P10.63 billion worth of insurance policies in 2012, a 97.6-percent year-on-year increase, the government-controlled corporation said. PCIC president Jovy Bernabe attributed the PCIC's 145.8-percent rise in underwriting profit to P303.942 million to good risk management. He also said that  crop insurance gained greater popularity among farmers and fisherfolk in a year of strong storms made more intense by climate change. The number of farmers taking out insurance coverage with PCIC rose to 281,852 farmers. A year earlier, they numbered barely 100,000. Of the total, about 134,662 are rice and corn farmers; 12,947 are livestock raisers; 1,111 are high value crop farmers; and 21 are fisherfolk. The remaining 133,111 were insured under the Term Insurance Package and Non-Crop Insurance coverage. The land area of insured farms rose 23 percent to 187,619 hectares. The PCIC also attributed the rise in insurees to: the growing number of cooperatives and grassroots organizations that took out Land Bank of the Philippines rice and corn production loans; the participation of the National Agribusiness Corporation in the corn insurance program; the  implementation of compulsory insurance coverage for farmers participating in the Land Bank-Sikat Saka; and the government’s third cropping program for rice farmers. In 2012, the PCIC paid out P195.641 million to 27,369 farmers and farm workers. Only 525 of the total were not rice or corn farmers. — BM, GMA News