Sponsors (19)
The bill would create an index-based federal frost/cold insurance option that could improve specialty crop growers' financial resilience and speed payouts, but it introduces basis‑risk for individual farms and potential administrative or taxpayer costs while relying on a short evaluation timeline.
Specialty crop farmers gain a new potential insurance option that covers frost and cold losses (production or revenue), improving their financial resilience against weather-related losses.
Growers benefit from an index-based national product that can speed payouts and reduce claims disputes by using objective triggers, helping farms recover faster after damaging cold events.
Taxpayers and policymakers get a required research and report to Congress within one year, increasing federal oversight and creating the basis for evidence-driven improvements to the program.
Some farmers may receive payments that don't match their actual on‑farm losses because index-based insurance can produce basis risk, leaving individual farms under- or over-compensated.
Taxpayers and farmers could face higher costs if developing and administering a new national index-based policy increases administrative expenses that are passed on as higher premiums or federal costs.
Growers and policymakers risk incomplete analysis because a one-year reporting deadline may be too short to develop, test, and fully evaluate a national index-based product, possibly producing premature recommendations.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires FCIC to develop and test a national index-based frost/cold crop insurance policy for listed crops and report results within one year.
Introduced February 10, 2026 by Scott Franklin · Last progress February 10, 2026
Directs the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation to develop and test a national, index-based frost and cold-weather crop insurance policy for specified fruits and other crops. The agency must conduct or contract R&D to design a policy that covers production loss or revenue loss and evaluate how well index insurance handles rare, catastrophic cold events. Requires the Corporation to deliver a report to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees within one year of enactment describing the R&D results and recommendations. The law does not provide specific funding or change the tax code.