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3 Things to Consider When Choosing a Crop Insurance Agent

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3 Things to Consider When Choosing a Crop Insurance Agent

Not all crop insurance agents are the same, nor are all crop insurance agencies the best at guiding farmers to the right products for their operations and their unique farm needs. Having an agent or agency that’s in tune with the industry and their customers is the key to having a comprehensive crop insurance policy and a successful relationship with your agent. Here are three key things to consider when evaluating a crop insurance agent or choosing a crop insurance agency.

Knowledge

Agriculture might be one of the oldest industries in the world, but it is constantly changing. The best crop insurance agents know both what the industry used to look like, and how it has changed. They also are constantly looking to the future, learning about new opportunities and technologies and exploring how those new developments can improve or enhance the crop insurance experiences or policies of their customer base.

Things like precision farming technology, GPS-based field mapping, and input application technologies can make farms and farmers more productive. These technologies can help farmers to better understand the potential risks and rewards of different crop insurance policies or risk management approaches, and they can assist with completing the reporting requirements necessary for many crop insurance policies.

Professionalism

Because of the changing nature of the agriculture industry, the crop insurance industry, and the family farm landscape, it’s essential for a crop insurance agent to be a working professional and industry specialist. Working with an agent who does crop insurance “on the side” or one whose primary business is non-farm means you could potentially be sacrificing your farm’s interests to a hard-to-reach agent or an uneducated one with limited strategic abilities in utilizing crop insurance as part of a larger risk management or revenue protection strategy.

Responsiveness

The biggest difference between crop insurance agents and agencies is how they respond to customers. If you have a question on your policy, are looking for advice, or if you’re dealing with a major event, you need to know your agent will get back to you ASAP with answers, solid feedback, and support when you need it.

A few things to think about when you’re selecting a crop insurance agent or agency?

  • What are their hours?
  • How easy are they to reach at the office? How about when they’re in the field?
  • Do they give out a cell number for after-hours emergency contact, or do they have an after-hours emergency protocol?
  • Do they use electronic communications, like social media pages and email, to provide information and communicate more frequently with customers?

Too much information and contact is pretty easy to scale back, but not enough contact is a hurdle to ensuring you have the best, most relevant information possible to make the decisions you need to for your operation’s risk management and asset protection strategy.

ARM Services repeatedly excels at each of these evaluation areas (and you don’t have to take our word for it!). We value our customers, and we realize that the best way to show them we care about their farming operation is to work our hardest at guiding them to the best programs, newest technologies, and policies with the greatest reward for their farm. If you think your operation deserves the best from a crop insurance agent, we invite you to contact us.