Agricultural insurance is entering a period of structural change as farm risks become harder to define. For Chris Jones (pictured), founder and managing director of Harvest, part of the Farmers Union of Wales Group, that shift is not a deterrent but the basis for a new entrant.
Jones has spent more than two decades in the market, beginning in administrative roles “making tea and coffee and filing” before moving into underwriting and distribution. The decision to launch his own managing general agent came with clear personal and financial risk, but he said it was grounded in experience and long-standing relationships. “I chose to back myself,” he said.
That confidence now sits alongside a market undergoing rapid change, where traditional insurance models are being tested by the evolving nature of farming itself.
The structure of farming businesses has shifted significantly in recent years. Income from livestock and crops alone is often no longer sufficient, forcing operators to diversify into retail, hospitality and other commercial activities.
“Farmers can’t always generate enough income just from traditional farming,” Jones said. “They really do have to diversify significantly.”
This evolution is creating more complex and fragmented risk profiles. A single farm may now operate as a hybrid business, combining agricultural production with customer-facing activities that introduce new liabilities.
Insurance, however, has not always kept pace. Policies designed around more static operations can struggle to respond to businesses with fluctuating activities and increased public interaction. The result is a growing mismatch between how farms operate and how they are insured.
Jones pointed to the practical implications of this shift. Farmers managing long working days may not always prioritise the same risk controls as traditional retailers, despite facing similar exposures from increased footfall.
Environmental volatility is adding further strain to an already changing landscape.
Storm damage has become a persistent and costly driver of loss. “We see damaged barns on quite a regular basis, as well as silos and irrigation systems,” Jones said. These events often generate clusters of claims, placing pressure on insurers’ operational capacity and financial performance.
“If you have 150 claims at the same time, the cost of servicing and paying those claims is quite significant,” he said.
The impact extends beyond physical damage. Delays in repairs and workforce constraints can prolong business interruption, increasing losses for both farmers and insurers.
In response, underwriting is becoming more data-led. Insurers are drawing on weather patterns, geographic exposure and historical claims data to refine pricing and coverage. At the same time, new exposures are emerging.
“It’s not common,” Jones said, “but the more that market grows, the more likely you are to see things happen,” he added, referring to cyber risk as farms adopt more connected systems and digital processes.
The shift in agricultural risk is bringing greater focus to specialist managing general agents, particularly in areas where standardised products struggle to accommodate more complex exposures.
MGAs operating in a single sector can build technical depth, but that specialism alone does not remove the underlying challenge of pricing and structuring risk in a more volatile environment. Harvest’s team, Jones said, is drawn from agricultural underwriting backgrounds, which he argued supports more informed risk selection.
The model can also introduce flexibility in how cover is assembled. “I can layer in four or five different companies into one product to create the solution,” he said. That approach can broaden available cover, but it also relies on consistent access to capacity and alignment between multiple carriers.
Jones said that combination allows specialist providers to engage with risks that may fall outside standard underwriting frameworks. The extent to which that translates into sustainable performance will depend on how those risks are selected and managed over time.
The decision to launch Harvest comes at a challenging point in the cycle. Pricing pressure is increasing, while new entrants must establish credibility with capacity providers and maintain those relationships in their early years.
Jones said he remains confident in the model, despite those constraints, attributing that confidence to relationships built over his career and familiarity with the sector. He said the business is not seeking to compete on price, but on what he described as consistent value and reliability, an approach that runs against a market where pricing pressure remains a dominant force.
“If I fail, I have no one else to blame. If I succeed, I can stand by it,” he said.
The pressure on agricultural insurance is unlikely to ease. As risks become more complex and less predictable, the ability to combine specialist knowledge with underwriting discipline will determine whether newer models can deliver sustained results.
