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W Texas | I've read all the replies with great interest.
In my opinion, insurance is a business decision, not a religious or moral decision. Most have to have it due to loans, lack of financial resources to survive a disaster, etc.
I don't insure because I use cash to put the crops in, farm in three different counties, and farm winter and summer crops. I also irrigate 3/4 of my ground. Hail may hit me pretty hard somewhere, but I'll get a rain on the farm 8-10 miles away the same day and have a good crop there.
I don't believe the hype about it being a good deal because it is subsidized. Farmers in SW Oklahoma plant crops hoping for a failure. Unless you are playing by their rules (which I am not), you are subsidizing their dishonesty with your insurance dollars, and all taxpayers are subsidizing their dishonesty.
I also don't like insurance agents telling me when to plant crops or whether or not I have to irrigate them. I have a neighbor who had corn absolutely devastated by hail a few years ago. A few days later, he had his pivots running because his ****ing insurance agent told him to water it. He could have cut it for silage and planted sudan for hay the next day (July 4th). Instead, he watered corn and harvested nothing. And I'll bet his insurance check wasn't nearly as good as his check for silage and sudan would have been.
Another perfect example is the high plains virus and wheat streak mosaic virus up in the Panhandle. The old farmers are still planting when the insurance agents are telling them to and getting crop failure after crop failure. If you don't believe me, drive through the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles right now. Planting later than the last planting date saves money on inputs and increases yields. Planting later and going without insurance is literally the safest thing to do, unless you want to buy big insurance and plant the wheat so early that it will be destroyed with disease. I guess that would work too.
Having said all this, I should say that I am one of the few who can honestly say insurance doesn't make sense for me. I am in a good position on debt and cash, etc. I also have a built in safety factor due to my operation being spread out and diversified.
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is there anyone who does not carry crop insurance?
