Crop Insurance For Wholesale Nursery Growers
Nursery Value Select (NVS)
If you have ownership in a nursery, and the nursery receives at least 40% of its gross income from wholesale marketing of nursery plants, and plants and nursery meet requirements for insurability, then you may be eligible for this coverage.
Choose the plant types, values and levels of coverage with USDA’s recently expanded Nursery Value Select (NVS) program.
Detailed inventory reports are no longer required to get coverage started, so the application and renewal process are simplified. Use your inventory records to determine the amount of coverage that you want and use the simplified reporting forms to declare the values to be insured.
Nursery Crops Insured
Irrigated crops meeting all stated requirements in the NVS policy provisions.
Nursery Crops Not Insured
Some crops are not eligible for coverage including plants in containers with two or more different genera, species, subspecies, varieties, or cultivars. Plants illegal to grow or sell in the state and county where the nursery is located and stock plants; or plants grown solely for harvest of buds, flowers, or greenery are not eligible for coverage.
Coverage Levels
- Catastrophic (CAT) Coverage Level
All plants in containers, or all plants field grown (may insure either or both) are insured under the selected value for all plants in the practice. The loss trigger is 50% and losses exceeded that trigger are reimbursed at 55% of the documented prices for the plants lost. - Additional Levels of Coverage:
Loss triggers are 25% to 50%, and you can tailor your policy to cover some plant categories, while excluding other plant categories. All plants in your chosen categories will be insured. You may insure different categories within each insured practice (container or field grown). Losses exceeded your chosen loss trigger are reimbursed at 100% of the documented prices for the plants lost.
Coverage Provided
- Adverse weather conditions. Adequate cold protection measures must be in place for plants that require cold protection.
- Failure of irrigation water supply, if due to an insurable cause of loss, such as drought.
- Fire, if weeds and undergrowth are controlled.
- Wildlife
Coverage Does Not Cover
- Collapse or failure of buildings/structures, or inadequate power supply unless due to covered causes.
- Disease or insect infestation, unless effective control measures do not exist.
- Failure of plants to grow to an expected size.
- Inability to market plants due to a stop sales order, quarantine, boycott, phytosanitary restriction on sales, or buyer refusal
Features and Add-Ons
Further customize your coverage with selecting separate values for each plant category you insure, with losses determined separately by category or by field grown or container grown plants (Basic Units). If you have field grown plants, non-contiguous locations can also be separate units.
Change your loss trigger to 10% with the Occurrence Loss Option (OLO), which allows smaller losses to be paid. Additional premium is charged for this option, and it is not available to CAT Level.
Add a Peak Endorsement to increase coverage during a designated peak period when your inventory value may be higher than the selected value.
You can elect to cover up to 90% of your deductible with a Hurricane Endorsement (HIP-WI). Not available in all counties.
Nursery Value Reports Required
- A report that includes your Selected Value for each plant category you choose to insure.
- Two printed copies of your most recent catalog.
- Your Monthly Unit Value Plan or stated monthly value of all plants in each plant category by month.
What Does It Cost?
Premiums are subsidized by the USDA Risk Management Agency for Conservation Compliant growers and based upon your stated values. There is the Catastrophic Coverage Level, which is subsidized 100% and is available for an annual $655 Administrative Fee.
Nursery Select Value is available in all states and counties.