Southeast producers suffering Hurricane Helene related damages and losses will soon receive indemnity payments under a federal crop insurance product.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the counties that have triggered for payment under the Hurricane Insurance Protection-Wind Index (HIP-WI) endorsement for Hurricane Helene. As a result, Approved Insurance Providers (AIP) have 30 days to issue payments to producers, but AIPs typically issue payments much sooner.
USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) Administrator Marcia Bunger discusses the recently triggered weather-index insurance policy used to pay these indemnities to Hurricane Helene impacted producers.
RMA first offered HIP-WI for the 2020 hurricane season, and last year, the endorsement was expanded to include the Tropical Storm Option (TS). Under HIP-WI and TS, producers with the endorsement will receive over $233 million in indemnities for hurricane-related losses from Hurricane Helene. These payments will directly help farmers and rural communities recover.
Currently, Hurricane Helene estimated indemnities for both HIP-WI and TS by state include Alabama at $5.0 million, Florida at $12.8 million and Georgia at $207.7 million.
These payments are in addition to the estimated $58 million paid for Hurricane Beryl, the $214 million paid for Hurricane Debby and the $128 million paid for Hurricane Francine, which hit gulf coast and southeastern states in July, August and September respectively. In total over $630 million in payments have been issued under HIP-WI and TS in 2024.
RMA is working with crop insurance companies to streamline and accelerate the adjustment of losses and issuance of indemnity payments to crop insurance policyholders in impacted areas.
Additional information on these emergency procedures is available on RMA’s Hurricanes Helene and Debby webpage.
A full list of FSA disaster assistance programs is available on the Hurricane webpage on farmers.gov.