Key Insights
➤ The Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) has accounted for most of the recent growth in supplemental coverage. By 2025, supplemental insurance covered 86 million acres, with ECO accounting for 72 percent. Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) participation has moved in the opposite direction, falling from a peak of 6.79 percent of eligible acreage in 2023 to 4.68 percent in 2025.
➤ The 2025 increase in the ECO premium subsidy was followed by a roughly 4-fold increase in insured ECO acreage, with much of the growth occurring in the Midwest and Northern Plains. Expansion of ECO eligibility to additional crops explains only a small share of the increase.
➤ Early 2026 sales point to another large increase in participation. ECO is projected to reach 61.8 percent of eligible acreage and SCO 26.5 percent, about 2.3 and 5.7 times their respective 2025 rates. In areas where acreage reporting is complete, however, observed ECO participation is running about 9.9 percentage points below the projection.
➤ The 2026 results should be interpreted as a transition year rather than an indication of where participation will settle in 2027. The higher subsidies in 2026 apply to the coverage structure that predates the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Beginning in 2027, changes to the SCO and ECO coverage bands will also alter premiums, indemnities, and the producer’s net benefit; the ECO band narrows from 86–95 percent to 90–95 percent, roughly halving the insured interval.
➤ Acreage participation also overstates the amount of value covered by supplemental insurance. SCO and ECO insure relatively narrow layers above the underlying policy deductible. ECO’s 90–95 percent layer is more likely to trigger than SCO’s coverage layer, helping explain why much of the subsidy-driven increase in participation has occurred in ECO.
➤ The Margin Coverage Option (MCO) drew few buyers in its first year, and then got an immediate test. Participation was limited at 8,959 policies nationally, in part because producers cannot combine MCO with ECO.
Recommended Citation: Francis Tsiboe, Henrique Monaco, Hongxi Zhao, Jennifer Ifft, Rwit Chakravorty, Dylan Turner, and Shawn Arita (2026). Trends and Outlook for Supplemental Crop Insurance in the United States, 2025. ARPC Report 2026–07. Agricultural Risk Policy Center, North Dakota State University. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.412822