The deadline for obtaining crop insurance for Florida peanuts, corn, and cotton is February 28th. You may want to reevaluate your crop insurance choices as premium subsidies have increased in 2026. Contact your crop insurance agent to discuss options and enroll before the deadline. You can search for a crop insurance agent on the USDA-RMA insurance agent locator website.
Increased Subsidies Reduce Premium Costs
Provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act increased federal crop insurance subsidies, lowering the producers’ premiums for 2026. Subsidies for crop insurance plans such as Yield Protection (YP) and Revenue Protection (RP) increased by 3-to-5 percentage points and now range from 41% to 80% of the full premium cost. Premium subsidies for Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) and Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) policies increased from 65% to 80%. The beginning farmer cutoff for additional subsidy benefits was extended from 5 years to 10 years of farming experience.
Types of Crop Insurance Plans
The USDA-RMA offers various types of federally subsidized insurance plans. Not all plans are available for all crops or all counties. Yield Protection (YP) and Revenue Protection (RP) plans are widely available and commonly used. Coverage levels for those plans range from 50% to 85%.
Yield Protection insures against yield losses caused by adverse weather conditions, fire, insects, plant disease, wildlife, or failure of irrigation water supply. YP guarantees a percentage of the producer’s actual-production-history (APH) yield, valued at a pre-season projected price. Revenue Protection insures against yield losses and declining commodity prices. RP guarantees a percentage of the producer’s projected crop revenue, which is the APH yield valued at either the pre-season projected price or the harvest price (whichever is higher). Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion is based on the projected price only; the guaranteed revenue does not increase if the harvest price is higher than the projected price.
Whereas YP and RP crop insurance guarantees are based on an individual producer’s actual yields relative to his or her historical yields, area-based plans are based on county average yields or revenue. Area-based plans available for corn and cotton include Area Yield Protection, Area Revenue Protection, and Margin Coverage Option. Margin Protection is available for corn, and Stacked Income Protection is available for cotton.
Additional Endorsements
Endorsements can be added to YP and RP crop insurance plans that increase the level of coverage (reduce the deductible). Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) and Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) are area-based endorsements that can be added to a farm’s Yield Protection or Revenue Protection policy. Combined, these endorsements can trigger insurance payments when county average yield or revenue falls below 95% of the expected yield or revenue. A federal subsidy covering 80% of the premium cost makes SCO and ECO inexpensive risk management options for producers.
Florida producers also have the option to add a Hurricane Insurance Protection – Wind Index (HIP-WI) endorsement to their crop insurance plan. The endorsement pays a portion of the deductible on a crop insurance policy when the producer’s county or adjacent county experiences sustained hurricane-force winds. Tropical-storm-force winds also could trigger the payment, if the producer selects the Tropical Storm option for the HIP-WI endorsement.
Projected Prices
The projected prices for corn and cotton in Florida are based on daily average futures contract prices between January 15th and February 14th. For Florida insurance plans, the relevant futures contract month is September for corn and December for cotton. Florida 2026 projected prices are now set at $4.42/bu for corn and $0.69/lb for cotton. The projected price for runner-type peanuts is $0.2455/lb ($491/ton), based on USDA-RMA survey data.
Insurance Premiums
The producer premiums vary by plan, coverage level, and other details. Contact your crop insurance agent for premium quotes for your farm. You can also obtain premium estimates on the USDA-RMA Cost Estimator website.
Revenue Protection Example
In 2025, the Florida projected price for grain corn was $4.66 per bushel, and the harvest price was $3.84. Example producer premiums for basic unit Revenue Protection coverage for a hypothetical 1000-acre farm in Suwannee County with an APH yield of 200 bushels per acre are shown in Figure 1. The producer’s premium cost ranges from $2.01 per acre for 50% coverage to $35.05 per acre for 85% coverage.
Selecting 75% coverage in this example has a premium of $14.53 and guarantees producer revenue of 0.75 x 200 x $4.66 = $699 per acre. If the producer’s actual yield multiplied by the harvest price ($3.84) was less than $699, an insurance indemnity payment for the difference would be paid to the producer. An actual harvest of 180 bushels would have resulted in an insurance payment of $7.80 per acre.
A producer who selected 85% coverage would have received an insurance payment ($24.20/acre in this example) even with an average yield because the harvest price was less than 85% of the projected price. This example shows how Revenue Protection crop insurance can help producers manage market (price) risk, as well as production (yield) risk.
Crop Insurance Calculator
A crop insurance calculator tool is available on the NFREC-SV Farm Enterprise Budgets website under Agronomic Crops. The spreadsheet tool allows you to enter an APH yield, projected price, harvest price, and insurance premiums for the different coverage levels. The spreadsheet will then calculate the indemnity payment and net insurance gain or loss under different actual yield scenarios. For information on insurance premiums, contact your crop insurance agent or visit the USDA-RMA Cost Estimator website.
Crop Insurance vs. Forward Contracting for Risk Management
Revenue Protection crop insurance prevents a loss of revenue below the guaranteed coverage level, whether revenue loss is from a price decline or low yield. Crop insurance also does not prevent the producer from gaining revenue on cash sales in the case that price increases at harvest. With reduced producer premiums because of increased subsidies and the ability to insure up to 95% (relative to county average) with SCO and ECO endorsements, crop insurance is an attractive risk management option for producers.
Forward contracting with a buyer prior to harvest is another method producers can use to manage market risk. Forward contracting does not have a premium cost. Locking in a price with a forward contract prevents a loss of revenue from a price decline at harvest but also prevents a revenue gain in the case that price rises at harvest. Forward contracting has the disadvantage of forgoing gains that could occur from rising prices after contracting. And it does not insure against yield losses.
Together, crop insurance and forward contracting help producers avoid substantial losses in revenue. Given the higher insurance subsidy levels, some producers may prefer a high level of crop insurance coverage and be less likely to forward contract. However, an analysis of corn prices over the past 20 years indicates that Florida corn producers would be better off, on average, contracting corn prior to harvest rather than selling at harvest time. The 20-year average September futures price is higher in all months, January through July, than it is in August, when Florida corn is commonly harvested. Producers should carefully consider both crop insurance and forward contracting for managing risk.
Featured photo: flooded corn at NFREC-SV, Live Oak, FL. Photo credit: Carson Jones.
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