Zurich North America has announced that its crop insurance business, Rural Community Insurance Services (RCIS), is now connected to John Deere Operations Center, a farm data management software, through John Deere’s API Services.
The connection expands RCIS’s existing agriculture offerings and allows farmers insured through RCIS to electronically connect their field data to RCIS systems for more seamless, accurate and secure crop insurance reporting.
“We’re excited about this new connection with John Deere Operations Center to offer best-in-class precision ag services to keep farmers doing what they do best, which is providing food, feed, fuel and fiber to a growing world population,” said Mike Day, head of RCIS for Zurich North America. “As precision ag continues to play a vital role on the farm, we will continue to innovate in this area to address our customers’ evolving risk management needs now and in the future.”
The time spent reporting acreage and harvested production is among the biggest time investments in crop insurance. The information is provided to the US Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency, a requirement of the federal crop insurance program. The John Deere Operations Center software makes the process of recording and reporting this information simpler and more streamlined.
The new connection comes at no extra cost to RCIS policyholders and allows farmers utilizing the John Deere Operations Center to access, analyze, manage and share their completed planting or harvest data from their accounts. With the farmers’ permission, agents can pull data directly into the RCIS FarmMaps mapping system to generate reports for signature, removing the need for paperwork, travel and manual entry and the risk of human error.
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“What used to be a timely, manual documentation and reporting process can now be handled in less time and with greater precision, and with equipment and tools that farmers and agents, for the most part, already have in place,” said Nick Luett, RCIS mapping product manager. “This is a game-changer for all involved.”
The connection also positions RCIS to use more precise ag information in the claims process. The use of the John Deere platform means that farmers can access harvested production records more easily, potentially saving time in the claims process.
“Digital technology is rapidly changing the agriculture industry and the way RCIS agents and farmers work,” Day said. “Precision ag is one such area driving this transformation and one that Zurich and its crop insurance business is heavily investing in.”
