Realized OBBBA Crop Insurance Subsidy Increases for North Dakota

By: Dylan Turner

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) raised the share of crop insurance premiums paid by the federal government beginning with the 2026 crop year (USDA Risk Management Agency, 2025). Premium subsidy rates for Basic and Optional unit policies rose by 3 to 5 percentage points across most coverage levels while Enterprise unit rates rose by 3 points at the 75%, 80%, and 85% coverage levels. The subsidy rate on the Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO), a county-based add-on that covers part of the deductible on a producer’s underlying policy, rose from 65% to 80%. Following passage of the OBBBA, the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) extended the same 80% rate to similar add-on policies, most notably the Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO), which extends coverage to 90% or 95% (Schnitkey et al., 2026).

An earlier ARPC analysis, written before any policies were sold under the new rates, applied them to 2024 participation and coverage decisions to show how much farmers stood to benefit from these changes (Turner and Arita, 2025). This brief updates that previous analysis with realized 2026 policy sales data to measure what the subsidy increases delivered to North Dakota in their first year. Using 2026 Summary of Business records from RMA, the analysis compares the subsidy paid on 2026 policies with the subsidy the same premium would have earned at the 2025 rate for the same crop, plan, coverage level, and unit structure. The difference between the two is the estimate of added subsidy.¹ Because the comparison uses the policies producers actually bought, it captures both the higher subsidy rates and any shift toward coverage that those higher rates encouraged.

Figure 1: Added Crop Insurance Premium Subsidy in North Dakota, 2026

Note: Added subsidy is the 2026 subsidy minus 2026 premium times the 2025 subsidy rate for the same state, crop, plan, coverage level, and unit structure. SCO = Supplemental Coverage Option, ECO = Enhanced Coverage Option. All other plans includes the underlying individual policies, area plans, and livestock plans. Catastrophic coverage is excluded.

Source: ARPC calculations using data from USDA Risk Management Agency, Summary of Business by type, practice, and unit structure, as of September 2026.

North Dakota producers received approximately $91.6 million in added premium subsidy in 2026 (Figure 1), about 9.4% more than the same policies would have received under the old rates. Supplemental plans account for more than half of the gain. ECO alone delivered approximately $39.7 million, reflecting both the higher subsidy rate and continued growth in ECO adoption by North Dakota farmers (Tsiboe et al., 2026). Acres with ECO rose from about 3.3 million in 2024 to 8.3 million in 2025 and reached 11.9 million in 2026, about 44% more than in 2025. SCO added approximately $11.8 million, and the remaining $40.1 million came mostly from the higher subsidy rates on underlying policies such as Yield Protection and Revenue Protection.

Setting aside ECO and the Margin Coverage Option (a new supplemental policy first sold in 2026), the added subsidy in North Dakota came to approximately $51.5 million, about $7.5 million above the $44 million the earlier ARPC analysis projected (Turner and Arita, 2025). Most of that gap reflects the jump in SCO purchases, which the earlier analysis did not capture because it held participation fixed at 2024 levels. Acres with SCO in North Dakota rose from about 1.2 million in 2025 to about 5.5 million in 2026, an increase of about 366%.

The added subsidy is spread across crops in roughly the same proportions as crop insurance premium in North Dakota (Figure 2). Corn and soybeans each received roughly $27 million, wheat received about $16.5 million, and canola received about $10.0 million. Together these four crops account for about 88% of the total additional subsidy support to North Dakota. Per acre, the gain ranged from about $3.06 for wheat to about $5.66 for corn among the major crops, reflecting differences in premium per acre and in how heavily each crop’s growers bought ECO and SCO. Higher-value specialty crops saw the largest per-acre gains, with potatoes at about $20 per acre and dry beans at about $6 per acre.

Figure 2: Added Crop Insurance Premium Subsidy in North Dakota by Crop, 2026

Note: Added subsidy is calculated as in Figure 1 and summed across all plans for each crop. Per acre values divide by insured acres.

Source: ARPC calculations using data from USDA Risk Management Agency, Summary of Business by type, practice, and unit structure, as of September 2026.

Overall, the crop insurance subsidy increases that followed the OBBBA delivered approximately $91.6 million in additional subsidy support to North Dakota farmers in the first year, equivalent to about a 9.4% increase in premium subsidy. More than half of that gain came through SCO and ECO, which received the largest subsidy rate increases and whose sales grew sharply in 2026. These levels of subsidy support could grow in later years, particularly if growth in adoption of the highly subsidized supplemental policies continues. Read the full ARPC Brief: 2026-20

Recommended Citation: Dylan Turner (2026). Realized OBBBA Crop Insurance Subsidy Increases for North Dakota. ARPC Brief 2026–20. Agricultural Risk Policy Center, North Dakota State University. October 6, 2026. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.413130