I. Particularity of the subject matter insured
The subject matter of agricultural insurance is mostly living plants or animals, which is strongly restricted by biological characteristics and has the following characteristics different from the non-living subject matter of general property insurance:
First, the insured value is difficult to determine. The subject matter of general property insurance is inanimate objects, and the insured value is relatively stable and easy to determine; The subject matter of agricultural insurance is generally in the growth stage during the insurance period, and its value is always changing. It can only be finalized when it is mature or harvested. Prior to this, the subject matter of insurance was in the gestation stage of value and did not have an independent value form. Therefore, it is difficult to determine the insured value when insuring. In practice, the insurance amount of agricultural insurance mostly adopts variable insurance amount, while the insurance amount of general property insurance is fixed.
Second, it has obvious life cycle and growth law, and the insurance period needs to be carefully and strictly determined according to the characteristics of crop growth period, ranging from several years to several days; The insurance period of general property insurance is generally one year.
Third, it has a certain self-recovery ability after being damaged in a certain growth period, which makes the loss identification of agricultural insurance more complicated. The time and method of loss determination are different from general property insurance, especially crop insurance, which often requires a second loss determination at the time of harvest.
Fourth, there are many kinds, different life laws and different abilities to resist natural disasters and accidents, so it is difficult to formulate unified rates and compensation standards, which increases the difficulty of agricultural insurance management; The rate standard and compensation standard of general property insurance are relatively easy to determine.
Fifth, subject to the natural reproduction process, the response to market information lags behind and the market risk is great. These factors must be considered in the underwriting and settlement of agricultural insurance; General property insurance is relatively simple.
Sixth, the fresh characteristics of agricultural products make the damaged site of agricultural insurance easy to be lost, which restricts the opportunity of agricultural insurance survey and the limitation of claims. If the insured fails to report the accident in time after the accident, he will lose the opportunity to investigate and determine the damage. This is also an important reason why agricultural insurance is more likely to cause moral hazard. Therefore, the limitation of claims in agricultural insurance contracts is much stricter than that in ordinary property insurance.
Second, the particularity of agricultural risks.
The main activities of agriculture are carried out in the open air, and the risks faced by agriculture are mainly natural risks. The particularity of agricultural risks is mainly manifested in the following four aspects:
First, the insurability is poor. The conditions of insurable risk are: a large number of independent homogeneous risks; The loss is unexpected, accidental and uncontrollable; The risk loss must be measurable and clear. The probability of catastrophic loss is very small. Most risks of general property insurance meet these conditions, while agricultural insurance does not meet the insurable conditions. First of all, agricultural risks have a strong correlation. Most agricultural risks come from uncontrollable human nature, such as flood, drought, hail disaster, insect disaster and so on. Disaster accidents and disaster losses often show a high degree of temporal and spatial correlation. Secondly, due to the wide coverage and great influence of agricultural disasters, the economic losses caused by agricultural risks are often difficult to measure. Thirdly, the probability of catastrophic losses in agricultural risks is relatively high. Almost every year, floods in China cause tens of billions of dollars in direct economic losses, which is disastrous compared with insurance funds.
Second, the risk unit is large. Dangerous unit refers to the loss range of the subject matter insured that may be caused by disasters and accidents. For general property insurance, an insurance unit is usually a dangerous unit. As long as there are enough insured objects, risks can be effectively dispersed in space. In agricultural insurance, a risk unit often contains thousands of insurance units, and the risk unit is huge. Once a disaster occurs, the insurance units under the same risk unit are damaged at the same time, so it is difficult to effectively disperse agricultural risks in space, and the risk dispersion mechanism on which insurance depends is difficult to play a role.
Third, it has obvious regionality. This is also unique to agricultural risks. China has a vast territory, complex geographical environment, various natural disasters with different frequencies and intensities, showing obvious regionality. The first is the regional distribution of risk types, that is, there are different types of disasters in different regions, such as frequent floods in the south, severe drought in the north, and typhoons mainly attacking the coast. Secondly, there are regional differences in the types of disasters and the degree of harm of the same production object, that is, due to different geography, climate and varieties, the types of disasters of the same production object in different regions are different, and their resistance to the same disaster is also different. For example, the same rice has different natural disasters in the south and the north of China. Even if they suffer the same disaster, the resistance of different rice varieties in the south and the north is different. The regionality of agricultural risks makes it necessary for agricultural insurance management to carry out risk zoning and rate zoning, which is a high-tech and high-cost work, greatly increasing the difficulty and cost of agricultural insurance management.
Fourth, more serious adverse selection and moral hazard. Adverse selection and moral hazard generally exist in insurance business. However, since the objects of agricultural insurance are mostly living animals and plants, their growth and food intake are inseparable from human behavior. After farmers buy insurance, they will inevitably increase their expected claims through their own actions. Because of the vast rural area, scattered commerce, inconvenient transportation, difficult management and high cost of effective supervision. Therefore, there are more serious adverse selection and moral hazard in agricultural insurance business.
The particularity of agricultural risks makes the operation of agricultural insurance extremely unstable, difficult and high in payout ratio. According to the relevant information published by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, during the 20 years from 1985 to 2004, China's agricultural insurance business was at a loss in 18, except for two years of meager profit, and the comprehensive payout ratio was as high as 120%.
Three. Particularity of agricultural insurance commodities
Commodities can be divided into public goods and private goods according to the nature of the market. General property insurance goods belong to private goods, while agricultural insurance goods are neither private goods nor typical public goods, but quasi-public goods between private goods and public goods. The quasi-public nature of agricultural insurance is mainly manifested in:
1. Although agricultural insurance has the main feature of exclusiveness in direct consumption, that is, farmers who buy insurance can get direct economic compensation within the scope of insurance liability, and farmers who do not buy insurance cannot get corresponding compensation, it is not exclusive in the whole consumption process, that is, in a certain link of insurance operation. For example, disaster prevention and loss prevention is an important link in agricultural insurance management and the main measure to reduce risk loss and insurance operation cost. However, when implementing disaster prevention and loss prevention measures, agricultural products that do not buy insurance can often take a ride.
2. The main commodities of agricultural insurance are not competitive. On the one hand, the high risk and high cost of agricultural insurance determine the high rate of agricultural insurance; On the other hand, the expected income of agriculture itself is not high, the disposable income of farmers is very low, and their ability to pay is very limited. Therefore, under market conditions, it is difficult to form effective supply and effective demand. Since 1982 China resumed agricultural insurance, apart from several newly established agricultural insurance companies, only the former China People's Insurance Company and the former Xinjiang Corps Property Insurance Company have been undertaking agricultural insurance, and their business is shrinking day by day.
3. The costs and benefits of agricultural insurance have significant externalities. Although both the supply and demand sides of agricultural insurance products can accurately calculate the income in the short term, in the long run, because the demand expansion of agricultural products (especially the basic agricultural products related to the national economy and people's livelihood) is limited by human physiological conditions, its price elasticity and income elasticity are very small. After the introduction of agricultural insurance, the effective supply of agricultural products increased and the prices decreased, thus improving the welfare level of the whole society and benefiting the whole society. Insurance companies and farmers did not get all or even the main benefits. The marginal private income of farmers who buy agricultural insurance is less than their marginal social income, and the marginal private cost of agricultural insurance provided by agricultural insurance companies is greater than their marginal social cost, that is, the cost and income of agricultural insurance are overflowing.
4. The particularity of agricultural risks determines that agricultural insurance must be operated on a large scale, so as to spread risks on a large scale and maintain the relative stability of operation.
The quasi-public nature of agricultural insurance products determines that it is difficult for agricultural insurance to adopt a purely commercial business model, which has been proved by the development of agricultural insurance at home and abroad.
Four, the particularity of agricultural insurance business model
The particularity of agricultural insurance commodities determines the particularity of its business model. General property insurance products belong to competitive private goods and generally adopt commercial operation mode; Agricultural insurance commodities belong to quasi-public goods, and their "public parts" should be provided by the government. Therefore, agricultural insurance must adopt the policy insurance business model. The essence of policy-oriented agricultural insurance is the net investment of state finance in agricultural insurance, supplemented by necessary legal and administrative support. In developed agricultural insurance countries such as the United States, Japan, France and Canada, the government subsidizes farmers' premiums by more than 50%, and bears part or all of the management expenses of insurance companies. Take the United States as an example According to the agricultural risk protection law passed in 2000, the government subsidizes agricultural insurance by more than 3 billion dollars every year, and the state's protection of agriculture is mainly achieved through agricultural insurance. China has been implementing agricultural protection policies based on direct agricultural subsidies and price subsidies for a long time. When natural disasters occur, the central government directly allocates funds to help the victims, and little investment is made in agricultural insurance. At present, China has no other supporting policies except agricultural insurance, which is almost purely commercial. The healthy development of agricultural insurance in China needs the government to increase investment. First, implement the "three subsidies" policy for agricultural insurance, that is, subsidize farmers, insurance companies and agricultural reinsurance, that is, the central and local governments subsidize agricultural insurance according to varieties and proportions, appropriately subsidize management fees for insurance companies engaged in policy agricultural insurance business, and establish an agricultural reinsurance system supported by the central and local governments. At the same time, support policies such as tax relief and preferential loans are implemented for agricultural insurance operations. The second is to study and formulate the agricultural insurance law and its supporting laws and regulations as soon as possible, and standardize and stipulate agricultural insurance from all aspects to ensure the healthy operation of the agricultural insurance system. The third is to give administrative support to the development of agricultural insurance, including insurance publicity and coordination of relations between all parties. However, agricultural insurance subsidies should be based on the national conditions, seek truth from facts, and do what you can. China is a developing country with limited financial strength. Under the current circumstances, firstly, gradually reduce the purchase price subsidies and export subsidies of agricultural products (which are also required by the WTO agreement on agriculture) and transfer them to subsidies for agricultural insurance premiums and expenses, and gradually implement agricultural protection policies mainly supporting agricultural insurance; Second, the implementation of agricultural insurance will inevitably reduce the government's expenditure on disaster compensation and relief, and the saved part can be invested in supporting the development of agricultural insurance; Third, in the early stage of agricultural insurance development, the state should focus on the long-term and appropriately increase the accumulation of catastrophe risk funds. The state's increasing investment in agricultural insurance is conducive to adjusting China's policy of supporting and protecting agriculture and improving China's agricultural protection system.
Five, the particularity of agricultural insurance organization form
The quasi-public nature of agricultural insurance commodities and the policy nature of agricultural insurance management determine that its organizational form is different from general property insurance. Article 70 of China's Insurance Law stipulates that an insurance company shall adopt two organizational forms: a joint stock limited company and a wholly state-owned company. In view of the particularity of agricultural insurance, in 2004, China Insurance Regulatory Commission proposed that under the current development level, the development of agricultural insurance in China should take the road of diversified organizational forms of business entities. Mainly includes:
1. Commercial insurance companies that handle agricultural insurance for the government, such as China People's Insurance Company and China United Insurance Company, have implemented policy-based agricultural insurance for dairy cows and rice in Sichuan and Jiangsu respectively. The advantage of this organizational form is that the above two companies have experienced a long and wide range of agricultural insurance practice, trained a large number of professional and technical personnel, accumulated rich management experience, and their business is easier to carry out.
2. Specialized agricultural insurance companies, that is, joint-stock insurance companies specializing in or mainly engaged in agricultural insurance, such as Shanghai Anxin Agricultural Insurance Company and Jilin Anhua Agricultural Insurance Company established in 2004. This organizational form is more suitable for developed agricultural areas, but the contradiction between the commercialization of joint-stock companies and the policy of agricultural insurance business should be solved.
3. Agricultural mutual insurance companies adopt the form of mutual insurance, but absorb the operation mode and corporate governance structure of the company system. Japan, the United States, European countries and other countries have adopted this form. In 2005, China also established Heilongjiang Sunshine Agricultural Mutual Insurance Company. This form has clear property rights and low transaction costs, which is conducive to mutual supervision and prevention of moral hazard, and is conducive to coordinating the relationship between the government, companies and farmers. It is more suitable for areas where agricultural production and operation are concentrated and well organized, such as Heilongjiang Agricultural Reclamation Area and Xinjiang Construction Corps.
4. Policy agricultural insurance companies supported by local finance, namely "Agricultural Insurance Promotion Committee" led by Shanghai Agriculture Committee. Although "the bottom" can solve the worries of insurance companies, it is easy to relax management and breed psychological risks; Moreover, it is difficult for local governments to "cover the bottom" of catastrophe risk losses.
5. Foreign-funded or joint-venture agricultural insurance companies, such as Chengdu Branch of French UNITA Insurance Company, which was established in June 5438+ 10, 2004. The establishment of foreign-funded or joint-venture agricultural insurance companies is conducive to the introduction of advanced management technology, management experience and high-quality professionals. Because of the huge regional differences in agricultural production, rural economy and local finance, the specific organizational forms should be adapted to local conditions and time.
Further reading: How to buy insurance, which is good, and teach you how to avoid these "pits" of insurance.