Weather triggers for farms, co-ops, and ag lenders.
Drought index, precipitation deficit, frost days, heat stress — Riskwright parametric policies pay on the weather, not on an adjuster's estimate of your yield loss.
Built for operations where cash flow follows the weather.
Grain producers
Row crop operations whose revenue is directly correlated with seasonal precipitation and temperature accumulation. Drought SPI triggers cover the most common loss scenario without requiring yield documentation.
Agricultural co-operatives
Co-ops with aggregated member exposure across a geographic area can use area-indexed triggers to provide coverage across their membership without individual yield records.
Specialty crop growers
Orchard, vineyard, and vegetable operations with frost and heat sensitivity. Trigger structures include frost degree day accumulation and temperature exceedance windows calibrated to critical phenological stages.
Livestock operations
Feedlot and pasture operations with forage dependency can use precipitation deficit triggers as a proxy for forage production shortfalls, without requiring a forage yield survey.
Agricultural lenders
Banks and credit unions with agricultural loan portfolios can layer parametric coverage over their lending book to reduce weather-correlated credit risk concentrations.
Grain storage & elevators
Elevator operators with throughput exposure to local production volume can use regional drought indices as a proxy for volume risk during low-precipitation years.
Index types and typical applications.
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
SPI-3 · SPI-6 · SPI-12The SPI measures precipitation deficit relative to the long-term average for a given location and time window. An SPI of −1.5 indicates that precipitation was approximately 1.5 standard deviations below normal. Widely used by NOAA and academic researchers, making it a well-documented and widely accepted trigger metric.
Typical application: Annual crop drought coverage, 3- or 6-month windows aligned to growing season.
Precipitation Deficit
Cumulative mm below thresholdA simpler metric: cumulative rainfall below a fixed millimeter threshold over a specified window. Easier for insureds to interpret than SPI, though slightly less statistically normalized. Particularly useful where a specific rainfall quantity has a known operational impact (e.g., pasture irrigation trigger points).
Typical application: Pasture and forage operations, irrigation supplement policies.
Frost Degree Days
Cumulative below 32°FCounts cumulative hours or days below a freezing threshold during a specified critical window (e.g., bud break through bloom). Designed for specialty crops where a single hard frost during flowering can destroy an entire season's revenue. Trigger window and temperature threshold are calibrated to the specific crop variety and growing region using historical freeze data from NOAA GHCN and ASOS stations nearest the insured operation.
Typical application: Orchards, vineyards, peach and blueberry operations in the Southeast.
County-level calibration
Station-to-field correlationAll trigger thresholds are calibrated to the specific county and growing region — not set to national or state averages. We use PRISM climate grids (Oregon State University) to assess the correlation between NOAA station readings and estimated conditions at the insured's specific field location, and we disclose the R² figure in the underwriting report before binding. County-level calibration reduces geographic basis risk by ensuring the station and the field are measuring closely related weather conditions.
Note on season windows: Trigger measurement periods are structured around the specific phenological or agronomic windows when weather stress matters most — corn pollination, winter wheat fill, peach bloom — not default calendar months. Window design is documented in the policy schedule.
Tell us your crop, county, and primary weather concern.
Our underwriting team will run a correlation analysis and return with a proposed trigger structure and indicative premium within two business days.
Request underwriting review