Prevented Planting Buy-Up Coverage: Payments and Policy Changes

By Rwit Chakravorty, Dylan Turner, and Francis Tsiboe

Prevented planting (PP) coverage allows insured producers to receive indemnities when weather or other covered causes prevent the timely planting of an insured crop. In addition to base prevented planting coverage, producers historically could elect a buy-up option that increased the share of pre-planting costs covered in the event of a prevented planting claim. On November 28, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) eliminated the 5% prevented planting buy-up option from all crop insurance policies. This brief explores patterns in prevented planting indemnities paid on buy-up records across crops and states from 2010–2024 to provide a reference point for the likely effect this change will have on prevented planting indemnities going forward.

From 2010–2024, prevented planting indemnities paid on buy-up records were largest for corn ($5.31 billion), followed by rice, soybeans, wheat, and cotton, as shown in Figure 1. By state, the highest total indemnities over the same period were in North Dakota ($3.18 billion) and South Dakota ($1.59 billion), largely associated with corn and soybeans, and in California ($1.46 billion) and Arkansas ($1.07 billion), largely associated with rice. Corn and rice together account for roughly $7.16 billion of the 2010–2024 total fiscal outlays shown here, while North Dakota and South Dakota together account for roughly $4.77 billion, indicating where a substantial share of observed prevented planting indemnities with buy-up coverage were paid during this period.

Figure 1: Top Five Crops and States by Prevented Planting (PP) Indemnities with Buy-Up Coverage

Figure 2 shows annual at-risk buy-up indemnities from 2018–2024 for corn, soybeans, rice, and wheat, with state labels indicating the state accounting for the largest at-risk amount for each crop-year. In this figure, the “at-risk” amount represents the portion of prevented planting indemnities attributable to the 5% buy-up option. Specifically, it reflects the incremental share of indemnities associated with the availability of the buy-up option during 2018–2024, which represents the counterfactual foregone indemnities if the 5% buy-up option were not in effect. Corn accounts for the largest share of at-risk indemnities in all years, driven primarily by South Dakota and North Dakota. South Dakota accounted for more than $105 million in 2019 alone, while North Dakota led corn at-risk amounts in subsequent years. Soybeans follow this same regional pattern, with South Dakota leading in 2019 (approximately $40 million) and North Dakota leading most years thereafter. Rice, alternatively, is concentrated in Arkansas and California, with amounts ranging from $12 million to $35 million. Wheat shows the smallest totals (typically below $15 million), with North Dakota again being the state with the most at-risk indemnities.

Figure 2: Prevented Planting Buy-Up Indemnities at Risk by Crop with Top State by Year, 2018–2024

The recent removal of the 5% buy-up option is not the first time that prevent plant coverage has been reduced. Beginning in 2018, the prevented planting buy-up option was reduced from 10% to 5%. Apply- ing a counterfactual 10% buy-up share to observed indemnities among buy-up records from 2018–2024 allows for a quantification of already foregone indemnities from the previous reduction in prevent plant buy-up coverage. For corn, total indemnities associated with buy-up records over this period totaled approximately $3.95 billion. Under the implemented 5% buy-up structure, about $329 million of these indemnities were attributable to the buy-up option, compared to roughly $608 million under a 10% counterfactual, implying approximately $278 million in foregone buy-up-attributed indemnities. For rice, indemnities among buy-up records totaled approximately $1.35 billion from 2018–2024, with about $113 million attributable to the 5% buy-up option, compared to $208 million under a 10% counterfactual, implying approximately $95 million in foregone buy-up-attributed indemnities over this period. Overall, the historical patterns documented here provide a benchmark for understanding how changes in prevented planting coverage design affect program expenditures and producer payments and serve as a reference point for the likely reduction in producer support that will come from the removal of the buy-up option.