Coffee farmers in Vietnam’s Central Highlands have received insurance payouts after heavy rains during the 2025/26 harvest season damaged their crops, Willis and Global Parametrics confirmed May 21. The disbursement is the first under a high-rainfall parametric policy that Willis placed with Bao Minh Insurance Corporation in late 2025. The payout comes roughly a year after a drought parametric policy – also arranged by Willis for the same farming community in 2024 – made its own disbursements. Together, the two products mark a deliberate effort to layer weather-risk coverage for coffee growers in one of Vietnam’s most agriculturally productive regions.
The 2025/26 policy is tied to rainfall recorded during the coffee harvest window, a period the companies refer to as the “golden” harvesting period. NASA satellite data monitors rainfall across three zones in Gia Lai province – West Ia Grai, East Ia Grai, and North Chu Prong – and when readings cross preset thresholds, the policy pays out without requiring field assessments or formal claims submissions from farmers.
That mechanism sets parametric products apart from conventional insurance, where payouts typically depend on loss verification after the fact. For smallholder farmers, the difference is material: money arrives when it is most needed rather than weeks or months into a claims process. Nathan Pereira, analyst for Alternative Risk Transfer Solutions at Willis, said: “This programme delivers tailored and timely financial protection to vulnerable coffee farmers, while strengthening trust in insurance and improving understanding of how effective risk solutions can support their livelihoods.”
The trigger for the 2025/26 payout was Typhoon Kalmaegi, which swept through the Central Highlands and caused flooding on a scale rarely seen in the region. In parts of Gia Lai, rainfall totals surpassed 1.7 meters, according to a US Embassy alert issued in November 2025. A Reuters report from the same month documented fatalities and disruption to the coffee harvest as floodwaters submerged farms across the province. The timing – mid-harvest – compounded the losses. Farmers who had not yet collected their crop faced both physical damage to their plantations and the loss of income from unharvested beans.
The capital behind the payouts came from the Natural Disaster Fund (NDF), a public-private structure managed by Global Parametrics. Global Parametrics operates as a subsidiary of CelsiusPro Group and focuses on climate and catastrophe risk in developing markets. The NDF draws its funding from the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and KfW, Germany’s state-owned development bank. The wider programme was backed by the InsuResilience Solutions Fund (ISF) and brought together Willis, ECOM Agroindustrial Corp. Ltd, Bao Minh Insurance Corporation, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Vietnam, and the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) in Australia.
Nguyen Thi Mai, sustainability project assistant at ECOM Agroindustrial Corp. Ltd, said: “This payout underscores the value of innovative risk solutions in agriculture, demonstrating how such initiatives can translate into real support for farmers facing extreme weather. Through close collaboration with partners, it reflects a shared effort to help farmers manage climate risks while contributing to a more resilient and sustainable supply chain.”
Truong Hong Thanh, a Gia Lai farmer, joined the scheme after attending an insurance training session in September 2025. When his farm sustained weather damage, the payout he received went toward restoring his garden. He has since said he will renew his coverage and is encouraging neighbours and family members to enrol. His case points to a broader dynamic in agricultural insurance markets: direct exposure to a working product tends to be more persuasive than any outreach campaign.
The Vietnam programme sits within a parametric insurance market that is expanding globally. Research and Markets, in a May 2026 report, put the sector’s value at US$19.4 billion in 2025 and projected growth at a 12.2% compound annual rate through 2035, reaching US$63.8 billion. Natural catastrophe coverage accounted for 65.3% of the market in 2025, according to the same report, with demand rising as climate events become more frequent and organizations look for coverage structures that pay quickly rather than through drawn-out adjustment processes. Satellite monitoring, IoT sensors, and predictive analytics are increasingly central to how parametric policies are designed and administered, enabling more precise index construction and faster settlement.
