Crop insurance never been more affordable

In a tough farm economy like this one, having the right crop insurance coverage to protect your farming operation and manage your risk is even more important. Luckily, higher levels of crop insurance have never been more affordable.

The recent reconciliation bill outlined important and pivotal changes for producers for the 2026 crop year.

First, Enhanced Coverage Option, Supplemental Coverage Option and Margin Coverage Option — which allows the producer to buy a similar band of coverage to ECO, but with a fall price discovery and additional protection against rising input costs — all experienced federal subsidy increases from 65% up to 80%.

These county-based programs offer coverage above your Revenue Protection coverage level, with ECO and MCO offering producers up to 95% coverage.

For Livingston County corn, in central Illinois, this takes 95% ECO premium from $28.03 in 2024, when the subsidy was 44%, to $10.01 this year, a 64% premium decrease over two years. This makes 95% coverage more accessible to farmers than ever before.

In addition to these high-level coverage subsidy increases, underlying RP, Revenue Protection with Harvest Price Exclusion, and Yield Protection coverage has also experienced a 3% to 5% subsidy increase, depending on coverage level, making the entire risk management strategy more affordable for producers.

There have also been significant improvements to the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage “Title I” programs.

ARC has been moved up from 86% coverage and a 10% coverage band to 90% coverage with a 12% coverage band. This makes the $5.03 corn ARC price and the $12.17 soybean ARC price for 2025 much more effective.

They have also removed the stipulation that limited the producer from taking ARC coverage and SCO coverage together — meaning your crop insurance decision no longer hinges on your ARC or PLC decision.

PLC also saw improvements, primarily in the increase of reference prices. With these increases, the new PLC price floor for 2025 will be $4.43 for corn, up from $4.26, $10.71 for beans, up from $9.66, and $6.35 for wheat, up from $5.56.

These major increases make this price floor much more relevant to current market values and helps to better protect producers against prolonged depressed prices.

Because all of these changes occurred past the 2025 ARC and PLC sign-up date of March 15, in 2025 only, producers will receive the higher of the ARC or PLC payment. Going forward, producers will need to make their ARC or PLC decision as usual.

ARC and PLC payments do not get issued until after the Market Year Average price has been determined, usually October of the following crop year.

The new reconciliation bill also outlined increased benefits for beginning farmers and ranchers, or BFRs.

Previously, BFRs received an additional 10% gross premium subsidy for their first five years of farming. Now, BFRs benefits will extend to their first 10 years of farming and will have a sliding scale of gross premium benefits with a 15% discount their first two years, a 13% discount their third year, an 11% discount in their fourth year and a 10% discount for the remaining years.

Producers that had previously lost their BFR benefits, but would still qualify for the new 10-year benefits — for example, if you’re on your seventh year of farming in 2026 — will need to reapply.

With all of these recent changes, risk management strategies for 2026 look bright. In Livingston County, Illinois, 80% RP with 80% to 86% SCO and 86% to 95% ECO used to cost $42.45 in 2024

Now, just two years later, the same plan would be $20.04 in 2026. That’s $22.41 savings for the same high-quality coverage.

These savings could be spent toward an ECO offset private product — that gives you the higher of county-based ECO coverage or the 86% to 95% individual, optional unit coverage — they could be spent boosting hail, wind and replant coverage, or toward another farm expense. The choice is yours.

There are many exciting, new risk management strategies available for the 2026 crop year.

For more information, consider reaching out to Strategic Farm Marketing at 217-356-0046 to see how we can help protect your farming operation today.

Katie Voinorovich is a crop insurance agent and data analyst at Strategic Farm Marketing & Crop Insurance.