Agriculture Insurance Company of India (AIC) CMD has called for expanding farm insurance coverage across India, citing escalating climate risks such as erratic monsoons, floods, and droughts. AIC manages flagship schemes including Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS). The emphasis is on leveraging technology—remote sensing, IoT, and AI—for accurate yield estimation and faster claim settlements. India's farm insurance penetration remains critically low despite government subsidies covering up to 90% of premiums for marginal farmers.

India's agricultural sector supports nearly 46% of the workforce yet faces chronic underinsurance. Climate change has intensified yield volatility, making crop insurance not just a welfare measure but a macroeconomic necessity. The AIC CMD's call is grounded in structural gaps: low farmer enrolment outside loanee categories, delays in claim settlement, and overdependence on manual crop-cutting experiments (CCEs) for yield assessment.

PMFBY, launched in 2016, attempted to address fragmentation of earlier schemes. However, coverage stagnated partly because non-loanee farmers—who constitute the majority—must voluntarily opt in. Technology integration via the CROPIC app and WINDS (Weather Information Network Data Systems) is being deployed to modernise data pipelines, but ground-level adoption remains patchy.

For NABARD, which provides refinance and developmental support to the agriculture sector, insurance penetration is a key metric of financial resilience. NABARD's KCC (Kisan Credit Card) linkage, SHG-bank credit flows, and FPO infrastructure all depend on farmers being insulated from catastrophic losses. Wider insurance coverage directly reduces NPAs in agricultural lending—a core concern for rural credit institutions.

The push for technology-backed risk assessment also aligns with India's Climate Smart Agriculture goals and AIC's mandate to eventually price risk accurately without excessive government subsidy dependence.