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FMH InsureCast brings you the latest from FMH and the industry to help navigate the expansive crop and farm insurance landscape. Topics include new products to leverage crop insurance within your risk management plan, and helpful tips from FMH staff and industry experts to stay informed on industry developments.
Welcome to FMH InsureCast, a podcast created by Farmers Mutual Hail designed to deliver expertise and insights from trusted FMH team members and industry experts. Each new episode will dive into new products, industry updates, and innovative solutions. Let's get to today's topic.
Speaker 2:Hello, and welcome back to the FMH InsureCast. As the growing season comes to a close, we're expecting some great yields across the Midwest, but we're also seeing some significant drops in our commodity prices. We will dig into what has moved our markets and what to do to prepare for a claim, and we have 2 knowledgeable guests and a lot of great information to cover today, so we're gonna jump right in. One of those guests here with me today is Matthew Little. Matthew, go ahead and introduce yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thank you, Ryan. Yes. I am new to FMH. I'm in my first 120 days here at FMH, getting to know the lay of the land.
Speaker 3:It's been awesome getting to know everybody. I'm not new to crop insurance. I have a 10 year crop insurance career throughout my career so far. I grew up in a family farming operation, outside of Lexington, Kentucky, row crops, cattle, a little bit of early tobacco. So, look forward to talking to you about the markets.
Speaker 3:Even though it's bad news, still good for the producers to hear and, for producers like myself to even if it's bad news, to dive into, what we need to do going forward, for these low commodity prices.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So let's actually start with the the good half of this conversation, at least revenue wise for farmers, which is we do see a lot of good yields out there, which is, I think, putting pressure on the markets. And you just got back from at least participating in part of the the pro farmer tour. You wanna explain a little bit about where you were and what you saw out there, what you heard from the others that were on the tour?
Speaker 3:Sure, Ryan. Just got back from the pro farmer crop tour, and just a reminder of what that that is, that's a sampling of the crop across the Midwest from started in Columbus, Ohio, moving into Indianapolis, all the way into Bloomington, Illinois, and then into Minnesota and Nebraska and the Dakotas. So they took over 2,000 samples from farmers across that area and tried to basically put together a sample set to describe exactly the differences and maybe what we're seeing from the WASDE report that was put out 2 weeks before that, which is the World Agriculture Supply Report that USDA gets from, NASA information and trying to actually compare those two numbers and see where we're at where we're at in the market going into harvest.
Speaker 2:And as a summary, that that tour wrapped up not long ago. What was the the overall outcome of that tour? I I believe, if I'm not mistaken, it was record yields. Right? That's basically what the, the reports are.
Speaker 2:Not not in all states, but across the board. Is is that also, what you saw as well, Matthew?
Speaker 3:Yes. So good news is for the producer, we're seeing some record yields out there. We did see some variability, from the WASDE report for what from what USDA had, estimated 2 weeks prior. We were we saw numbers that were, a touch under what the WASDE report said, which is common, year in and year out. We estimated, for example, in Ohio, a, the USDA estimated a 188 bushel corn, and the pro farmer crop tour, came in at a 183 bushels.
Speaker 3:In Indiana, 270 bushel corn estimate off the USDA WASDE report, and the pro farmer crop tour came in at 187. In Illinois, we had an estimate from USDA 225, and the pro farmer crop tour came in at 204. So what that number tells me is we do have some variability out there in this crop. We're gonna have some different areas that, we're not gonna see probably the USDA estimates, but that being said, we are still looking at a better than average crop and potentially close to record corn yields, maybe the 3rd highest corn crop that we've ever seen out in the field, so that will obviously impact prices and our balance sheet going forward, for sure Yeah. Or and and impact our producer decisions and insurance.
Speaker 2:Yep. Most definitely. And not that there's it's not perfect out there. I know there's spots in Minnesota, Kentucky, Ohio, and I know that there's been rounds of, hailstorms out west. So it's not perfect picture out there everywhere, but, definitely across the US, great yields in in general.
Speaker 2:So besides that being the obvious, you know, driver of lower prices, what else has made our prices fall so sharply in the last 24 months?
Speaker 3:Well, if you look at our last, 18 to 24 months on our balance sheet, we're going into this harvest season with about 1.8 to 2,100,000,000 bushels of carryover, which if you look at our total balance sheet, we usually run anywhere from 15,000,000,000 to 18,000,000,000 bushels of corn. So if you're talking 2,000,000,000 going into the harvest season, we're holding, you know, 10 to 15% of our prior year crop, from last year, which is if you look historically, whenever we get to a 2,000,000,000 bushel carryover number in corn, that definitely impacts our pricing, and we start seeing sub $4 corn. So for that reason, we've got out of our balance sheet about 11,000,000,000 bushels, accounted for through ethanol, exports, and domestic consumption. So if you were to put those numbers into a washing machine and, come out with what we're gonna come out with next spring, you could potentially be looking at anywhere from 7 to 8000000000 bushels of carryover going into the spring, which will impact our spring spring price when we set insurance insurance prices, pretty dramatically.
Speaker 2:Now, So for folks looking for some hope in in terms of prices, because, we may not be at the bottom yet, but it sure feels like we're close to the bottom, is the what what might trigger prices going a little higher here over the next 6 months as we get to talking about 25 more than 24?
Speaker 3:Well, we have some political implications coming up that could definitely either be a driver or a deterrent, depending on what happens politically. We have some, definitely some opportunities to move, some some of our balance sheet out, if we have some lower than expected crops in other countries. Some some of the things of those nature We need we need a
Speaker 2:disaster that's not here. Right?
Speaker 3:Exactly. Well, you're never praying for anybody else's disaster, but definitely, in that case, it would definitely help our balance sheet. But, you know, we're definitely gonna probably start feeding a lot more of our grain as well. Cattle feeding should pick up heifer retention in the cattle herd, things of that. Carrying cattle longer through the cattle cycle will definitely eat up some of that those numbers, in our balance sheet as well, but it's it's a 24 month cycle.
Speaker 2:Sure. Sure. So, let's bring this back to crop insurance. We have basically been on this decline down for you could say at least since the the spring of 23. How have those price declines in 23 and now lining up again in 24, how have they affected our crop insurance policies?
Speaker 2:What what would you pull out as a couple of highlights there?
Speaker 3:So, you know, as well as I do, Ryan, we we we had a close to a 20% decline in price in 23, and and we're looking at, you know, in the 17 to 20 percent again. So, I mean, we're we're definitely getting to a point in our market to where you would hope that you can't see things, in the you can't see things going much lower, but we just don't know. And rounding into the spring of next year, the big concern for the producer is gonna be, how do I get enough coverage under my crop, with a 3.80 spring price with a 3.50 spring price? How are we gonna get enough liability on this crop to, work our crop budgets, when when you're looking at a prior year cropping budget of 900 bushels per acre on corn to a1000 depending on what kind of budgets you have. I mean, how are we gonna get a floor on this crop?
Speaker 3:So that's gonna be really alarming for producers, for the banks, for for insurance agents on on making the proper decisions and trying to have all the information and make the best decision that we can make. Regardless of what happens in the market, it's making the best decision that we can make at that moment as a producer.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well and I I think what you're really alluding to here, Matt, as we look as we look to the future here, what was an easy thing to do in 23 and 24, which was essentially lock in a guarantee that's somewhere above our input costs, when we get into 25 and and possibly years past that, it's gonna be difficult to find an insurance package that that meets our breakevens. Yep. That said, does that mean and I'm asking this question to you. Does that mean we should be pulling back on crop insurance or putting more into it if we can't get to our breakevens?
Speaker 2:How do you how do you handicap that decision?
Speaker 3:For my own personal crop insurance decision, I always start with my own budget in the spring. Where are we gonna come in with our budgetary just constraints? Do we expect to see a drop in our budget? I mean, there's probably a 100 to $200 in a budget that we may get out of, you know, different areas. Maybe we'll get interest down, maybe we'll get, some things down on fertilized prices, maybe gas will go down, maybe it'll go up.
Speaker 3:But start with your budget. Line out your budgets as soon as we possibly can, and then start talking about coverage level. And, if you're going to nix any area in your crop in in your in your budget, just be mindful of crop insurance and how important it is in that budget and trying to, now, at this point, not lock in profit or lock in a margin point, but now we're gonna be in a area where we're locking in breakeven or as close to breakeven as we can possibly get. So you're gonna need your ECOs, your ramps, your your band products, your higher level coverages to even get in a $700 an acre, input cost. So these are all things that, as a producer, you can't be penny wise and dollar short.
Speaker 3:You know, you really have to look at your budget and say, am I going to cut areas? Where am I gonna cut areas if I can and try to try to, put insurance in the in the forefront of, how we're gonna set a breakeven, you know? So Awesome.
Speaker 2:Those those are my opinions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No.
Speaker 2:I like it. I do wanna at least outline one silver lining here, and I don't know that it's a great silver lining. But, our FSA programs, the ARC and PLC programs, really have kind of been on the sidelines the past few years just because our our commodity prices were increasing and it was a a positive environment for farming. As we've come back down, those programs, ARC and PLC have really become much more likely to trigger. And again, that would be really starting with the 24 year.
Speaker 2:There's a possibility we could trigger some ARC or PLC payments. That marketing year actually starts here in just a few days. For those of you, just tuning in, I mean, it's it's August 26th here. It's also very hot outside. It's a 100 degrees here in Des Moines.
Speaker 2:So but August 26th, meaning that marketing year average for the ARC and PLC programs is gonna start, and then that lasts for a full year. But it uses the cash price received by farmers to calculate those those ARC or PLC payments, and those are much more likely to trigger than they have been in the, last couple of years. And even thinking about the 25 crop year, they may also trigger. Now there's a a pretty long timeline for those programs. Any payments made for the 24 crop year won't be made until about October of 2025.
Speaker 2:So it's a it's a long timeline, but it's at least something small that I think farmers can look forward to. If you have had average yields to below average yields at all, the art program looks very likely to trigger. And if our prices stay low for the next 12 months, PLC also, could trigger depending on which crop we're talking about. Anything else you would consider or add here to the conversation in regards to markets, crop insurance decisions, anything in those lines?
Speaker 3:I would I would probably start now with your next year's decision. Give margin a strong look. Make sure you look at margin now. I mean, there's there's some positives on margin protection and there's some negatives, but definitely at least see your options that are out there. So your your your 2025, decision starts, with the 9 30 sales closing the margin.
Speaker 3:So, I mean, there's there's some definitely some opportunities to market corn all the way off in December that, you know, at this moment might be your best play that you have. You know? So, start your marketing pros process now and work into whatever you find to be your best insurance, plan, and then build out your marketing plan for 2025 as soon as possible, because the sooner that you do that, the less variability you'll have it in in in your crop year for 2025.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I, I wanna take 30 seconds to to define that out a little bit because I normally, we would do a little bit more robust section on margin protection, but some changes to the subsidies on ECO, we mentioned that in the the last episode, have really tipped the scales in, towards ECO, as far as a 95% area option. That said, margin is still here. It might cost a little bit more than an ECO, insurance package would. And the comparisons that I've looked at, you're looking at 6 to $12 an acre more expensive to go the margin route than do the ECO route.
Speaker 2:But we're also we get the bird in the hand, which is the the December corn price for 25 right now, which is not as good as it has been in recent past, but looks okay today. It's at, I think, 4.37 is where it's tracking on corn, something in the mid tens for beans, which, again, not ideal prices. But if we fast forward the clock until February, is our spring price in February gonna gonna be $4? Is it gonna be 4.50 or somewhere in between, or is it gonna be sub 3? If there's fear or speculation that the market could continue to fall, I don't know.
Speaker 2:A margin is gonna look better the more that price falls from now, until February. So any any quick thoughts on that before we transition here?
Speaker 3:I think just observing your crop insurance options, and making sure you know what what is out there, whatever decision you make, will let you sleep at night, at least knowing that you surveyed all the options that were out there. So by looking at margin and comparing that to an ECO, SCO, in PCI, you know, strategy versus, you know, an 85 and relying on ARC, There's gonna be lots of different options, lots of different ways, but just knowing all those options and having all the information is just always gonna make you feel better about your decision.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Well, I really appreciate you joining here today, Matthew. With this price drop, we expect there will be quite a few claims coming up this fall. Sounds like you may have a claim yourself. So the listen in because I'm gonna bring in another guest here to talk about some of the implications for preparing for a claim for the fall, especially when we have a a large price drop like this that could bring more folk folks into a claim than than they even expect.
Speaker 2:So well, I really appreciate you joining here today, Matthew.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate the opportunity to be on the InsurersCast today. Thank you, Ryan, and, looking forward to Zach's claims update. And, hopefully, next time I'm on here, we'll see, some $7 coin.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, as I mentioned, we're gonna talk a little bit about how claims will come into effect here in 24 with these big price drops. We just had a great conversation with Matthew Little, and I'm my other guest, Zach Allsup, is with us here. Zach, go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us what you do here at FMH.
Speaker 4:Thanks, Ryan. Again, my name is Zach Allsup. I'm the vice president of field claims. So basically in charge of our field claims operations nationwide. When you think field claims, think all that adjustment procedures and and operations that we do out there in the field for claims.
Speaker 4:So I kinda make sure I eliminate the roadblocks that they face and try to give them the tools they can have and need, to be very efficient and very good at what they do. So
Speaker 2:Awesome. So we we were actually just chatting here before we started that, a few numbers. One is as of today, as of half an hour ago, our corn price was down, 17 and a half percent from the initial spring price of 4.66. I think it's somewhere in the close to 3.95 ish or a little less. And then on beans, 16 and a half percent drop as of today.
Speaker 2:And that was 115 5 down to I think it was about 9965. But either way, those prices are tracked in the month of October. So, again, it's August 26 today. So we've got a little over a month before we get there. But assuming that the prices don't have a lot of support to go much higher, we know that there's gonna be a lot of revenue, price driven claims here in 2024.
Speaker 2:So tell us a little bit about what the implications of that price drop are for for your line of business.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Thanks. I mean, I think there's a little bit of a feeling of deja vu. Right? I feel like it was a year ago we were sitting here talking about 17% price declines on corn, and here we are again.
Speaker 4:Right? Yeah. Nobody loves to be in this situation. Nobody really maybe I'm sure some people maybe predicted it, but, but here we are. Right?
Speaker 4:So, the big thing there is, you know, just some things to think about as a producer in general, an agent as well, is just be thinking and remembering that just because you don't have a poor crop doesn't mean you're not gonna trigger a loss. Right?
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 4:Just like last year, you could have a pretty good yield and still be in the situation where you have a a loss or a claim because of that price decline.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna jump right on that because I wanna just for transparency, I would say, personally, the agents that I work with, I got a lot of calls in February March from agents that were collecting production and realized, oh, yeah. I think I have a loss. And in some cases, it could have been too late to pay those losses.
Speaker 4:Yeah. The big thing we always preach is, you know, don't put yourself in a situation where a claim may get, declined or denied just because we're late getting it in. Right. So general rule of thumb, Midwest farmers, you wanna, if you think you may have a loss, get the loss turned in. We can always withdraw it if there's not a payable loss, but get it turned in.
Speaker 4:And I would say, get it turned in before Christmas as a general rule of thumb, get it in before Christmas. And you're usually gonna be fine. You start pushing it any further beyond that, then you run a risk of of a potential denial. I'm not saying that's what we look to do, but we are still handcuffed by the rules of RMA to to tell us when we can and cannot accept a claim. So get it in early if you think there may be a chance.
Speaker 4:You have tools, your agencies, if you're an insured listening, talk to your agent, work with your agent. They have they have their trigger yield reports they can run, which will give you a general idea of where that where that point is, where it'll trigger a loss. That's a great tool to have out there, to make sure you're not missing it.
Speaker 2:So Yeah. And just to hammer the home that point, an 85% policy, which we still sell plenty of those across the Midwest, that's triggering a claim even with above APH type of numbers right now. Right? So we have a 17 a half percent price drop. That means that we could still produce above our APH across the whole farm and still collect on the claim.
Speaker 2:So to keep good records and and do the math or get that trigger report to know exactly, what that number is. Let's talk about a farmer or an agent preparing for a claim. Maybe you just let's talk from the farmer's perspective first.
Speaker 4:Sure.
Speaker 2:What is some materials, FYI's that they should have before they get that call from the adjuster?
Speaker 4:Yeah. I would start by saying if you you know, the first thing I would say is if you have old grain in your bin. Right? So that you know, we just talked about the carryover that's out there, right? So there's still a lot of, a lot of production that hasn't been sold off yet.
Speaker 4:If you are a producer that's carrying yield still still have bushels in the bin is reach out to the, to your agent, have us get a claim so open up so we can go out there and just mark your bin with the old production. So, yes, during the growing season, as you're bringing corn in or bringing in bean and filling the bin, you can and filling the bin. You can mark off the bin for your unit structure, but you can't establish where the old grain level is. Mhmm. We need to be doing that from the from the AIP perspective.
Speaker 4:So if you have grain in there that you're gonna dump new grain on top of, get ahold of your agent, get ahold of us so we can get somebody out there to mark that grain bin. That's the first and foremost thing I would say if you're carrying old grain. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Jump on it. To be clear, it's not if you have a grain, a bin full of 23 grain that's full and you're not putting any 24 grain on. We don't need to measure that. Yep. That should have been reported on your production report.
Speaker 2:Yep. It's only situations where we're dumping new grain on top of old.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Great call out. It's, yeah, if you're gonna put old with new before you do that, we need to we need to meet the ones that mark that bin. And then we're, you know, if you're gonna be pulling anything out of there, keep good records of what's gets pulled out, before we get into the point where you're putting 24 on top of it.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Okay. What other, what records should that farmers have?
Speaker 4:You know, I just mentioned how you can mark your bend to separate your units. Well, that kind of folds right into keeping your production separate by unit structure. So if you have enterprise unit, it's not quite as pivotal, but if you are an optional unit, producer, you're gonna wanna have your records that support that. Have your settlement sheets marked off which loads went to which unit. If you feed, make sure you have feet good feed records.
Speaker 4:Those are always tough. They need to be more than just X bushels sped, over this time frame. It needs to be, more detailed than that contemporaneous records. Same thing as if you do dump it all into a bin and you wanna allocate your production or break it out, I should say, prorate it, not allocate it, but prorate your production by by load. Again, it's contemporaneous records showing, you know, 6 blue trucks, 3 red trucks, and when they came off which fields.
Speaker 4:That's the biggest thing. I mean, nothing not nothing's really gonna make your claim go as smooth as just good records. Good clean record keeping will help everybody involved. It helps the the adjuster. It helps the insured.
Speaker 4:If there is a reason to have to do a claim audit through, you know, high dollar reviews or anything like that, good records saves everybody time. And like they say, time is money. So precision rolls right into that. If you're a precision farmer, you know, if you're out there in the country where you can keep your your your getting on there, you're getting a separate precision. It's great for those record keeping.
Speaker 4:If you record, harvest the data with your with your bubble on top, that's fantastic. The big thing there is make sure you have a calibration report. And if you do and you're within that 3%, tolerance, then we should be able to use that production information. That's a big time saver. If you have a policyholder center account, but you can also submit your precision data through your policyholder center account.
Speaker 4:And if you do that, we can consume that right into our claim system again, have that already assigned to the units, provided we and you can upload your calibration report there as well. So the the adjuster truly can get all that information and have a lot of that ready to go when they show up for their visit. Most of it would be reviewing it with you and getting signatures. So precision's a a great time saver for the insured, and again, it just results in getting paid timely.
Speaker 2:And we're we're talking in high level here, but maybe we should dig down just a touch deeper. And I didn't have this on our agenda here, but should we talk just briefly about what a hard record is versus a soft record? Sure. I know that, obviously, hard record's gonna be a BIN measurement.
Speaker 4:Yep. It's
Speaker 2:gonna be a settlement sheet. Yep. It's gonna be an appraisal. Yep. Precision records?
Speaker 2:Precision records that
Speaker 4:have Provided that you have calibration report or calibrated with the 3%.
Speaker 2:All those would be hard records, meaning whatever that number is, we can use that for the claim.
Speaker 4:Bluetooth Grain Car Grain Car Center integrated with, Bluetooth technologies that can, print off us the tickets. Mhmm. That's considered a hard record as well. K. You know, one of the the big topics you'll hear about from others is about on farm scales.
Speaker 4:There was a year, a couple years ago, where RMA tweaked their language to unintentionally. They've walked that back last year, and they have not made any changes to it this year. So unless your on farm scale has been certified and can store and record and print out, and, like, the record and store are probably the hardest ones, the hardest ones to meet there. Unless that has all that functionality, it's not gonna be considered a hard record. So what is a hard record?
Speaker 4:That is production that stands as is. What is a soft record? It's it's a record that helps you establish production based on your total bushels in the bin. If you wanna break that out with a soft record, like a load record, it's an element to get to the the final production account. It doesn't stand by itself.
Speaker 2:Correct. So I would to try and simplify that, you know, on a very simple farming operation, which there is no such thing. But let's just say a farmer just had one big bin. Okay? One big bin.
Speaker 2:First of all, if they have 23 grain in there, get that measured. Right? But then on top of that, if everything is going into that bin but we have multiple units, we can measure how much is in that bin from the new crop grain, but we don't know how to put those bushels to a particular unit unless we have a soft record to help us do that. So the hard record here would be the bin measurement itself. And let's just say that's a 100,000 bushels.
Speaker 2:That's a big bin.
Speaker 4:Then And there's 23 grand in there
Speaker 2:too, so And there's 23 grand in there. And then on top of that, we could use the soft records then to allocate of those 100,000 bushels, how many bushels go to each, oh, unit.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So that bin measurement, like you mentioned, that just that is the the deciding factor of how many bushels there are there. Right? That is the bushels.
Speaker 2:You will have a total break that up. A 100,000 bushels that will establish your claim. Yep. But the actual where those bushels go to comes from the soft record. Correct.
Speaker 2:Yep. And what are some examples of soft record?
Speaker 4:Let's say you're not a precision producer, but you have all your, your combine yields. You took a picture after you got off of every farm or you can print off. Maybe you didn't have the calibration work for you. It just didn't didn't didn't come together, but you have a, you know, a printout of how many bushels came off of each field. You can utilize that as a soft record
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 4:And break it out. Load records of, you know, how many semitrucks came off of each field. We can measure the semi. They have an under understanding of, you know, how many bushels go in there. If you have your totals that you you know, 2 hoppers here, 1 hopper there.
Speaker 4:I mean, it can it can get pretty granular, but it's again, it's gonna be a contemporaneous record that shows as you were taking the the yield off that field, how did you get it out of there? What what measurement, you know, what increments of measurement do you have that we can utilize to break out that bin full of of corn?
Speaker 2:Awesome. So we talked about timeliness, so I'm not gonna hit on that again. But I think Christmas thinking about Christmas for your for your spring crops is a great way to think of, I gotta have my records down well enough to compare it against a trigger yield or to just bring in my agent and say, hey. Do I have a claim or not? If you're doing that before Christmas, there shouldn't be any trouble at all.
Speaker 4:I would throw out sooner is better.
Speaker 2:Sooner is better.
Speaker 3:Sooner is better.
Speaker 4:Sooner is better.
Speaker 2:Till Christmas. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And and I'll just say that too. You know, let's say you you submit your claim. You have a claim. You submit your claim. You're gonna get a phone call from your adjuster, hopefully within 48 hours.
Speaker 4:This year, obviously, we're gonna have a pile of claims coming in, because of that price decline. Yes. Yields are good, but we still expect lots of claims. Right? They may not be the, you know, really big claims, but we're gonna have them.
Speaker 4:So when that adjuster calls, they're gonna call. They're gonna reach out to you, see when it works best to meet with you. So you you're timely getting that claim in. But if you're somebody that maybe is not in a hurry to get paid, which, you know, some people wanna defer that payment to the to the next year if they can, let your adjuster know because we're gonna be able to put enough people on the front end that won't pay this year to work through those claims and provide them the service they want while delaying the work on your claim, you know, to help you out there too. We're gonna have plenty of work to do.
Speaker 4:So if you prefer to get paid later, let your adjuster know when they make that phone call to you. We'll do our best, to to help you out there. And then really anytime you get into the month of December, you know, don't hide from your adjuster. If we're if we're through those people that won't pay that year, we will work your claim in December and we will not pay it till January if that's what you prefer. We have a small window of time that we can go through our audit process, take care of everything we need to do, spool it up, be ready to go, once that January date hits.
Speaker 4:So we can help you with that a little bit as we get later in the year. Obviously, you know, again, don't wait till we're at your farm on November 1st to tell us, hey. I don't wanna pay till next year. That's not really gonna work. Let us know up front on that initial call.
Speaker 4:We can work the people that wanna be worked. That's gonna take us plenty of time, and then we can take care of those that wanna be paid later. So, that's a that's an option we've had out there for a couple years. It's been real real successful and, it's helped a lot of people out and kept us moving, with our claim volume again. Because, like, I think we've talked about before, Ryan, you know, you get that person that that avoids the call from the adjuster because they don't want them showing up too early.
Speaker 4:Right? Right. Well, you don't have to do that. You can have that conversation with that adjuster, and we can build being a win win situation.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Zach, I see some very fancy handwriting you have on your on your notes
Speaker 4:somewhere between cursive and print. I'm not quite sure what it is.
Speaker 2:I do the same, by the way, but I'm I'm sure there's some smart stuff you've written down there. So what other reminders did you wanna point out to to the audience?
Speaker 4:You know, probably something I was on this mic saying last year was let's, you know, let's consider, direct deposit or ACH for your claim payments. I think most people would agree that the mail system is not as fast as it used to be, maybe not as reliable as it used to be. So let's let's talk about the ACH or the direct deposit. Producers can sign up through power solar centers. Agents can help get it signed up, get the producer signed up for automatic deposit.
Speaker 4:It's just faster. It's easier. You can get your client payment in your bank account within a day of when we process that claim for payment in the office. In the past, you know, one of the big hurdles was if you had an assignment of indemnity in your crop, you couldn't do ACH. You can now.
Speaker 4:So we have a form that's available online. Agencies can pull it off, get it signed. And, basically, if you have an assignment with a bank and that money is gonna go to that bank, the bank just says, yeah. We're good with it. And we still deposit that money through ACH.
Speaker 4:Everybody gets their money quicker. And it just it's it's a lot more secure, safe, and and helps everybody, really. So consider that if you don't already have it signed up. Once you get it's only a one time thing. You get signed up for it.
Speaker 4:We keep it on your file, and life is good unless you wanna take it off, and then we can.
Speaker 2:So speaking of good times to do that, waiting until you're ready to sign off on that claim to do the direct deposit Not ideal. Might might be a little late.
Speaker 4:It's fine. We can do it. But now, if you're hearing this and you haven't done it, or Call your call your agent.
Speaker 2:Or the that phone call that you call the agent to say, I think I have a claim to turn in, that might be a good time to
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:To finish that direct deposit form.
Speaker 4:Yeah. The other thing that, you know, one of the challenges we face nowadays is there's a lot you know, so many LLCs and corporations and whatnot. And so they all have, you know, EINs that's not necessarily based on a Social Security number.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:And so then the question always is who can sign? You know, who has the rights to sign off on this claim? It's a challenge that we face from the field, a challenge we face in the office too. So where where I would just plead is is, you know, for the agents listening and even the insurance to simplify their life is signature authorities are really handy tool, and they can provide the the producer can provide a signature authority sheet that they sign off saying this person can sign on behalf of this, corporation or LLC or even your individual policy for that matter. And once that's on file, you can do it anytime in the year.
Speaker 4:You don't have to you don't have to do it at the beginning of the year. And once we have that, then it becomes a lot easier for our for our field staff to know who who is the person that actually has the right to sign. Right. Because it can be tricky. I mean, you can be an SBI and not actually have the authority to sign off on that, that claim.
Speaker 4:So that that's always something that the field, the field employees, the adjusters, supervisors have always said is, man, if the more people we can get to to make that clear and easy with the signature authority just simplifies the life in the field so much. Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Any other notes you have there? Bits of knowledge you could share with us?
Speaker 4:You know, I I I don't. Those those were the notes I had written down,
Speaker 2:but I would just say is,
Speaker 4:you know, in a year that, that we're gonna have a pile of claims, be patient. You know, if you're if you are in a hard hit area, you may see an adjuster that you don't see every year. And that's okay. Then that's, you know, we do a lot to make sure we're very consistent, with our processes, with our system, our trainings. So, you know, somebody coming from, you know, Iowa or, or or Ohio or Kentucky or Texas up to as far as, you know, Minnesota, you know, they they they get travel.
Speaker 4:They it's not it's not new to them. It's not a whole lot different yet. Maybe there obviously gonna be some differences. Right. But the process is the same.
Speaker 4:The system is the same, and they do a good job. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so if you have if you're in Minnesota and you have somebody walking into your farm that sounds like Matthew, don't be afraid. They know what they're doing.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Exactly. Just because they sound like Matthew doesn't mean they know any less about corn and beans.
Speaker 2:That's right. So I believe Matthew would say something about the marbles in his mouth right now. So but, in any case, I'll leave you with the the final word before we wrap up here. But, appreciate everybody joining. If you haven't noticed, yes, I did get my head shaved.
Speaker 2:Yes. It is coming back very slowly. This is 2 months worth of growth. I I it might take a year.
Speaker 4:I have been there. I did it too. That's for a good cause. Maybe maybe we should do it next year.
Speaker 2:Yes. No. No. I've I've been recorded the last time. So, yeah, final word, and then we'll wrap it up here.
Speaker 4:I you know, thanks for having me on, I would say. And for those listening, thank you for your business and, for trusting FMH with your with your crop insurance. And, we believe we do a pretty good job and and look forward to taking care of you and making sure you get the best claims experience that we can give you.
Speaker 2:2nd best department at FMH, claims. Oh, man. Number 1, sales.
Speaker 4:Spoken like a true salesperson.
Speaker 2:In any case, thank you for joining the FMH InsureCast. Thanks for watching and or listening. And a quick reminder, if you haven't checked us out on YouTube, FMH does have a YouTube channel. And thanks again for joining. We'll we'll talk again at you later.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to FMH Insurecast. We appreciate you joining us today and would like to hear from you. If you have questions about today's topic or an idea to share for an upcoming podcast, you can contact us at FMH podcast at FMH dotcom. Thanks for listening. This podcast is intended for information purposes only.
Speaker 1:See policy provisions, terms, and conditions for details. Products underwritten by Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company of Iowa and its affiliates, West Des Moines, Iowa. Farmers Mutual Hail is an equal opportunity provider.