A group of farmers will get half their Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. (MASC) hail insurance premium refunded on acres enrolled in the Canada-Manitoba Excess Moisture Assistance Program (CMEMAP).
“Early in October our (MASC) board agreed we could give back half of the premium for those drowned-out acres,” Craig Thomson, MASC’s vice-president of insurance operations, said in an interview Oct. 21. “Basically what we’re doing is accepting their CMEMAP application as notification of a request to do a short-date hail cancellation.”
About 1,400 farmers will get a total of $669,000 in hail insurance premiums refunded.
Read Also
Senft to step down as CEO of Seeds Canada
Barry Senft, the founding CEO of the five-year-old Seeds Canada organization is stepping down as of January 2026.
Earlier this year farmers whose crops were damaged by hail complained when they learned acres signed up under CMEMAP weren’t covered. Under CMEMAP farmers received $30 an acre for crops destroyed by excess rain, but a hail payment would pay many times more per acre.
MASC said its hail coverage doesn’t cover “non-viable crops” such as those destroyed by excess moisture. Private hail insurance providers have the same policy, Thomson said.
Farmers said in that case if those CMEMAP acres weren’t covered by hail insurance they should get their hail insurance premiums refunded.
And that’s what happened in the case of about 250 farmers who formally notified MASC by June 29 that their crop was destroyed and therefore ineligible for hail coverage.
However, farmers argued formal notification shouldn’t be necessary since MASC was administering the CMEMAP program and could find out which acres were destroyed and should qualify for a premium refund. MASC’s board agreed, Thomson said.
But the affected farmers are only eligible to half their premium back because they had hail coverage until July 19. That’s the first day farmers could apply to the CMEMAP program
MASC and private companies use the same formula to prorate premium refunds, Thomson said. The longer coverage is in place, the lower the refund.
When canceling coverage on July 19 farmers are eligible for a 43 per cent premium refund, but Thomson said MASC is rounding it up to 50 per cent.
Thomson said he hopes in future farmers will remember that crops that have been destroyed are not covered by hail insurance and to cancel hail coverage right away to maximize their premium refund.
MASC hopes to increase awareness by explaining it in a letter to the 1,400 farmers getting a hail insurance premium refund. The insurer said it also plans to ask Manitoba farm group Keystone Agricultural Producers to bring it to its members’ attention.
— Allan Dawson is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator at Miami, Man.
