I am starting to get questions about the RMA designations for our counties for the purposes of claiming insurance payments for crops that were affected by Debby. Some of you may have too. I have attached the RMA map showing direct and indirect counties for Debby. The questions I am getting are from producers in counties that were not designated by RMA as either direct or indirect counties.
To be able to claim an insurance payment based on the policies I have seen, two conditions have to be met. The rainfall amount over a 4-day period surrounding the passage of the storm has to be at least 6.0 inches AND the sustained winds must have reached at least 39 mph, at least as it is currently worded. As I understand it, the rainfall amount is an average for an entire county, so if there is a big gradient in rainfall across a county, the county as a whole may not qualify based on rainfall even if nearly half of the county area received more than the required amount. The rainfall values are based on official observations, so even if a producer received substantially more in their own gauge, that does not appear to count for insurance purposes. I am not sure how they determine rainfall amounts in counties that do not have any official gauges, but I assume they use some sort of geographic estimation. The wind criteria is based on sustained wind, not gusts, so even if wind gusts were measured well above 39 mph, the gusts do not count towards the insurance criteria because sustained winds are much lower speed than wind gusts because they are averaged over a much longer time period. The wind observations are also based on official wind observations, so having a home weather station that recorded higher winds does not count for insurance purposes because there is no guarantee of correct siting or quality control. My UGA weather stations usually report lower winds than the official NWS observations because our measurements are taken at 11 feet instead of the official 33 feet (10 meters) used by airport stations. Note that you are eligible for the insurance if you are in a county where both criteria are met (direct) or in an adjacent county that shares a border with a direct county (indirect).
There are two issues that are keeping producers from being able to claim the insurance payment. Either the rainfall was not 6.0 inches or more in their county (or adjacent county) or the sustained wind speed was below 39 mph. Debby had a lot of rain along the path of the storm but the winds died off quickly once the storm made landfall and so the area of sustained winds of 39 mph or more was only in a limited area, mostly to the right of the storm path. For that reason, I think the wind in Debby was more of a limiting factor to being designated as a directly affected county than the rain for most counties.
I have reviewed the NWS observations for wind and rain from numerous stations and from what I have seen the RMA map is accurate considering the official observations that are available, although there are a couple of counties I might argue with on rainfall. The Tropical Storm Warning from the National Hurricane Center noted that the sustained wind was a maximum of 45 mph when it passed over southeastern Georgia but the actual measurements showed that the wind was quite a bit lower than this, and I assume that the RMA maps are based on actual observations, not estimated values used in the warnings. I’ve been told that in past events, sometimes the area of direct and indirect counties included has been expanded but I don’t know anything more than that, and it is certainly not a guarantee they will do it this time.
When the hurricane insurance was first issued in 2020, I wrote a blog post about my concerns about the requirements for collections as being too strict (https://site.extension.uga.edu/climate/2020/05/new-hurricane-insurance-program-what-do-the-data-say/). I was happy to see that they expanded it to tropical storm damage, but it seems to be that the requirements are still too stringent for most producers to be able to collect based on all of the data I am able to find.
Feel free to distribute this information to producers in your areas. I know that the impacts of Debby caused a devastating loss to many farmers, some of whom are still recovering from Idalia last year and even Michael in 2018, and because of the way these policies are written, they may not be able to recoup their losses from Debby. I hope that the area of insured damage will be increased over time for the sake of the farmers in the non-designated counties. If I have misstated anything about how the RMA guidelines are made or what the insurance policies state, please send me a note so I can correct this post. I don’t want to give out any false information. I will also note that Georgia is particularly affected by the way the RMA area is drawn by counties, since our counties are smaller than the counties in the other states and so less of our area is covered by the RMA designations than in other states (note that this problem also affects the forage payments due to drought, but that is another story).
