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Farmers Edge partners for parametric weather insurance

On Tuesday, Farmers Edge, a Canadian digital agtech company, announced a partnership with Munich Re, a reinsurance company, to develop data-driven parametric weather insurance solutions.

They intend to use digital infrastructure that combines precise, site-specific datasets with science-based analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve parametric coverage models. While traditional claims can take months, parametric solutions are designed to be completely automated by data.

Agricultural parametric insurance covers areas that are excluded from all-risks indemnity policies – such as excess moisture or heat – to protect growers against unpreventable high-intensity and catastrophic losses. These policies are designed to offer claim payouts as soon as events are triggered, eliminating the typical loss adjustment and reporting period. However, these parametric weather policies may carry significant risk across data-sparse regions due to insufficient publicly available data.

“As a farmer myself, it was paramount for us to provide a solution to help growers across data-sparse regions access more protection,” says Wade Barnes, Farmers Edge CEO and co-founder.

FarmCommand, the Farmers Edge risk management platform, automates all data transactions between growers and insurers. The platform delivers hyper-local, high-density insights, due to the Farmers Edge weather stations that are installed on the farm, AI and robust datasets, such as daily satellite imagery and site-specific weather conditions, to detect claims and trigger instant payouts.