Description

A statutory or cooperative agricultural accident insurance scheme covers the in-sured against occupational accidents or illness. This scheme covers all costs incurred as a result of accidents suffered during land management, livestock farming, for-estry, fishing or hunting activities. The insurance pays the cost of medical care for the accident victim, including rehabilitation, and, depending on the policy, provides social security for the surviving dependants in the event of a fatality. A distinction is made between compulsory and voluntary accident insurance schemes.

An agricultural accident insurance scheme usually takes the form of a risk-sharing community organised as a cooperative, which is financed on a pay-as-you-go basis by the regular contributions of member businesses, in some cases supplemented with state grants. The financial contributions are determined on the basis of the size of the farm, livestock numbers and the number of staff.

Some of the insurance premiums go towards accident prevention measures (e.g. safety guards on tractors and machines and in housing systems prescribed by law). Failure to practice accident prevention can be sanctioned with higher contributions to reflect the higher risk.

Requirements

• A properly functioning country-wide administration and monitoring system with access to the relevant information and sufficient technical and human capacities for its design, implementation and monitoring
• (Emerging) Insurance industry
• Close cooperation and knowledge sharing with farmers' organisations
• High proportion of the working population formally employed
• Open-access to all farms, regardless of size and location

Possible Negative Effects

• Conventional state social insurance systems do not cover workers in the informal sector
• Farmers fail to implement accident prevention measures