Definition of catastrophic event when developing crop insurances for Finnish markets

Abstract

In Finland, there is need for new crop insurance system as the Crop Damage Compensa-tion scheme (CDC) is abolished in 2015. Therefore, the responsibility of farmers, insurance companies and government in case of crop damages and catastrophic events need to be de-fined. We compared CDC data to the total value of crop production in Finland. Probability of catastrophic losses was simulated by Monte Carlo method and compared to farmers’ stated beliefs on catastrophic events. Results suggest that there occurs no such catastrophic risk that crop insurance system would not be able to cover. Thus, disaster relief program by the gov-ernment is not needed in Finland.