Measuring Willingness to Pay of the Insurance Premium for Agricultural Products and its Affecting FactorsA Case Study of Wheat Growers in Fars Province

The main objectives of this study were to investigate the parameters affecting farmers’willingness to pay for insurance premiums using direct and indirect estimationmethods. Socioeconomical factors and farmers’ participation percentage in theinsurance scheme were investigated. Expected utility function was used in the indirectestimation method. Also a reasonably fair insurance premium was defined. Usingrandom sampling method, primary data were collected from a sample of 150 wheatgrowers of Marvdasht region by questionnaires in the 1392-3 crop year. Secondarydata were obtained using various sources such as the annual agricultural and statisticalreports, the Agricultural Jihad Ministry official website as well as AgriculturalInsurance Fund. The Results demonstrated that, insured farmers had higher averageincomes and also lower income variations. This led to a higher marginal utility in thisgroup. Moreover, the average willingness to pay insurance premiums was higher usingthe indirect estimation method. This highlights the importance of considering factorssuch as farmers’ preferences and their attitudes' to risk when calculating insurancepremiums. Overall results showed that, farmers are willing to pay higher premiumswhen they are fully informed about the advantages of having an insurance policy andare also guaranteed a fast and easy claiming process whenever is needed