India is becoming the most technologically ambitious agri-insurance market globally with the landscape transitioning from scale-first to intelligence-led coverage, according to Navin Sharma, Senior Leader from EDME insurance brokers Ltd.
“India today operates the largest crop insurance ecosystem globally by farmer count, anchored by PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana). The evolution is no longer about onboarding farmers alone; it is about precision, credibility, and sustainability,” he told businessline in an online interaction.
EDME Insurance Brokers Ltd, one of India’s leading insurance and reinsurance broking firms, was launched in 2024 through the acquisition of Aditya Birla Insurance Brokers Ltd and the integration of UIB India. Mumbai-based EDME, recognised for its technology-led approach, is backed by prominent investors including Samara Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Creador.
Headquartered in Mumbai, EDME has built a strong pan-India presence with 19 branches and a team of over 350 professionals, serving clients across more than 1,600 cities. In FY25, the firm managed a premium book exceeding ₹5,000 crore, working with Indian and global corporates, PSUs, MSMEs, family offices, and retail customers, supported by robust insurer and reinsurer partnerships.
Shift from manual
EDME offers end-to-end solutions across retail, corporate, and specialty segments, covering property, marine, engineering, liability, employee benefits, trade credit, surety bonds, transaction risks, cyber, climate risks, and advanced reinsurance lines.
The agri-insurance sector is shifting from manual, area-based assessments to satellite, artificial intelligence, and model-based yield estimation. Reactive claim settlement has moved to predictive and near real-time payouts through public-private-technology partnerships, Sharma said.
While Western agri-insurance systems are farmer- and revenue-centric, offering farm-level yield and price protection, the Indian system remains climate- and yield-centric with area-based risk pooling.
“However, India is leapfrogging by embedding satellite intelligence and digital public infrastructure at a national scale—something Western markets adopted gradually over decades,” Sharma said.
Not policy driven
Crop insurance growth is no longer driven solely by policy; it is increasingly risk-realisation driven. “From EDME’s engagement with farmers, insurers, and agri-enterprises, climate volatility is now structural, not episodic. Erratic monsoons, heat stress, cyclones, and unseasonal rainfall are impacting yield predictability,” he said.
Input-cost inflation and debt exposure mean a single crop failure can destabilise farm economics. Farmers now see loss patterns more clearly through advisories, satellite alerts, and digital platforms, the EDME official added.
Insurance is increasingly viewed not as mere compensation but as financial resilience infrastructure. Risks have expanded from traditional yield loss to stage-specific crop stress, from single peril events to multi-peril cascading risks, and from local weather shocks to systemic climate patterns, Sharma said.
On the role of satellites in crop insurance and claims, he noted that satellite intelligence has become foundational, not experimental. “At EDME, we view satellites as enabling three critical shifts,” he said.
4 crore farmers insured
They are used to monitor plot-level crop health, moisture stress, and vegetation indices, replacing broad-area assumptions. The firm enables parametric and index-based products with payouts without human intervention. It reduces friction between insurers, states, and farmers through objective and auditable data.
India’s agri-insurance premiums exceed ₹30,000 crore annually. Over 4 crore farmers are insured each year, and ₹1.8 lakh crore in claims have been paid since the launch of PMFBY.
“Importantly, loss ratios are high but not unhealthy; they reflect climate realities and subsidy-backed social protection, not pricing failure,” Sharma said.
On settling claims using technology, he said claims settlement has moved from paper-driven validation to platform-led execution. Key transformations include the National Crop Insurance Portal (NCIP) enabling end-to-end digital workflows, satellite-assisted yield estimation reducing dependence on physical crop-cutting experiments, Direct Benefit Transfer ensuring funds reach farmers without intermediaries, and mobile-based enrolment, grievance redressal, and claim tracking.
Next reforms phase
Policies such as PMFBY, mandatory digitisation of enrolment, land records and claims, and acceptance of satellite-based yield estimation have materially improved the agri-insurance ecosystem, the EDME official said.
The next phase of reforms should include uniformity across states to avoid fragmentation, expansion beyond yield loss into income, price, and quality risks, independent actuarial oversight, integration with AgriStack and real-time weather infrastructure, and incentivising private innovation through sandboxed pilots.
“Insurance must evolve from a scheme to a risk ecosystem,” Sharma said.
EDME is enabling next-generation products that combine satellite intelligence, growth-stage coverage, and parametric triggers. It is working with global agri-tech leaders to localise advanced risk models for Indian conditions and advising insurers and government bodies on technology adoption, risk structuring, and claims governance.
The firm is advocating for farmer-centric design, delivering simple, fast, and credible insurance, Sharma added.
Published on March 6, 2026