Click on the Home tab and select Get a Quote.  Complete the brief question set to enable your premium and charges to be calculated then proceed enabling cover to be bound.  Once bound, you will receive the relevant important policy documents and a tax invoice for payment to complete the purchase.

The price of the Nitrogen Risk Insurance is directly related to the risk of there being a yield difference between the two specified Nitrogen fertiliser rates – a higher risk gives a higher price.  The quoted price is the risk of a revenue shortfall, and that risk depends on Climate Zone, Soil Type, Month crop started, Original and New Nitrogen Rates, and the value of cane at harvest. You know your sugar pricing strategies, so you choose the value of cane at harvest for the insurance policy.

When your policy matures the yield of the crop at the two Nitrogen rates is calculated with the APSIM model using the weather the crop experienced over its life, which is why you choose a Climate Zone. The cane yields simulated by the APSIM model at the two Nitrogen rates are compared and, if there is a difference, the shortfall in tonnes per hectare is multiplied by the cane value and the area of the block insured to determine the payout.

The Nitrogen Risk Insurance lets you manage the risk of yield and revenue shortfall from reducing Nitrogen applications from your usual, Original rate to some lower, New rate. The Original Rate is the existing, or higher rate of nitrogen and the New Rate is what you will apply instead of the existing rate. Insurance is calculated from any yield difference between these two rates.

These two rates need to be given to specify the premium, as the risk of shortfall changes depending on the Original rate and the reduction from the Original rate to the New rate. For example, if the New Rate is 10 kg per hectare less than the Original rate, the risk will be lower than if it was 30 kg lower.

Allowing you to specify these two Nitrogen rates the Nitrogen Risk Insurance tailors risk to each specific block.

The optimum amount of Nitrogen fertiliser for a sugarcane crop varies depending on the soil type. If, for example, you have both coarse and fine textured soils on your farm the risk of revenue shortfall will be different for the two soils for the same nitrogen rates.

The optimum amount of Nitrogen fertiliser also depends on the growing season of the crop, which is greatly affected by when the crop starts growing (after harvest). For example, early harvested crops develop through winter and spring and are starting to mature during summer when rainfall usually increases. Whereas late harvested crops are developing through this usually rainy time. Rain not only affects the amount of Nitrogen in the soil available for the crop to take up, clouds also reduce the sunlight received by the crop and thus its growth rate.

Including all these factors means the Nitrogen Risk Insurance tailors risk to each specific block.

Your harvesting plans for next year are not yet known and will depend on many things at that time. So rather than forcing you to make harvesting decisions one year in advance, Nitrogen Risk Insurance works on the basis of all ratoon crops being 12 months, which is the approximate average of ratoon crops at harvest. This makes the insurance simpler and gives you peace of mind that you can optimise next year’s harvest based on the conditions at the time.

The insurance program has been specifically designed to provide cover against simulated loss of yield arising from application of reduced Nitrogen rates amongst a number of other factors influencing yield. There is no cover against any perils including fire, storm, some effects of cyclones, wild animals etc. some of which can be covered under separately available insurance policies.

Because we don’t know the weather the crop will experience when it grows, we can’t know the optimum Nitrogen fertiliser rate at the beginning of the crop. The Nitrogen Risk Insurance is a science-based approach that combines the most important factors that determine the optimum rate of N fertiliser for sugarcane ratoon crops. By specifying these factors at the start of the crop’s life, we can then use them together with the weather the crop experiences through its life, to determine the yields at the Original and New Nitrogen rates. The difference between those two yield levels will determine whether there was any revenue shortfall and payout.

This science-based approach also means the Nitrogen Risk Insurance is very efficient. The risk of shortfall is only determined by the weather the crop experienced and not extraneous factors such as unexpected pest damage, weed growth, etc. Likewise, payouts are calculated automatically, and do not need negotiations that occur with some other forms of crop insurance. These efficiencies reduce the premiums to ensure potential payouts closely match the risk of yield shortfall.