A tough growing season doesn't end when the crop comes out of the field. For farmers facing a crop insurance claim, there's another job ahead: documenting what happened.

Crop insurance providers may need information about when and where damage occurred, what caused it and how much production was lost. Depending on the claim, farmers may also need records covering acreage, planting, inputs, production, rainfall and other field activity.

Finding all of that after a difficult season can add another headache to an already stressful situation. Good farm records can help.

What records might you need for a crop insurance claim?

USDA's Risk Management Agency says it's the policyholder's responsibility to establish the time, location, cause and amount of a loss.

The exact information you'll need depends on your crop, policy and cause of loss. Your crop insurance agent or provider can tell you what's required for your claim.

Records they may ask for can include:

• Field and acreage information
• Crops planted
• Planting and harvest records
• Input and field activity records
• Required Production Record Type (Common types include):
  
  • Sold or Commercially Stored
  • Farm Stored Measured by Insured
  • Automated Yield Monitoring
  • Field Harvest Records
• Weather history including daily rainfall amounts across a time period
• Information about when and where damage occurred
• Documentation related to the cause of loss

Timing matters, too. USDA RMA generally requires farmers to provide notice of damage or production loss within 72 hours after initially discovering it and no later than 15 days after the field has been harvested, subject to the requirements of the individual crop policy.

Weather records can help tell the story of a growing season

When drought, excess moisture or another weather event affects a crop, knowing what happened at a particular field can provide useful context.

Bushel tracks recent rainfall for mapped fields. Depending on your plan, you can also look back at rain and heat history and compare conditions across seasons. The Monthly Rainfall Summary provides daily rainfall amounts for mapped fields. You can filter the report by year, month, group or field and download it to share. Instead of trying to remember how much rain the north quarter received three months ago, you have a record to reference.

Keep in mind: Your crop insurance provider determines what documentation they'll accept for a claim. Bushel records can help you gather and organize information.

Keep field information together

Weather is only part of the picture.

Bushel's farm management software lets you map your fields and keep information about crops, scouting, inputs and other farm activities together. Depending on your plan and how you use Bushel, you may also have field attachments, satellite imagery, storage and load information, activity reports and machine data from connected systems.

Those records help you run your farm throughout the year. And when someone asks what happened on a particular field months later, they're a lot easier to search than a stack of notebooks, texts and spreadsheets.

Don't wait until you need the records

No one starts the growing season hoping they'll need to file a crop insurance claim. But keeping good records before there's a problem can make a difficult situation easier to manage.

Map your fields. Keep crops current. Record activities. Track rainfall. Save supporting documents. Then, if weather doesn't cooperate, you have a better starting point when your crop insurance agent asks for information. Because after a tough year, the last thing you need is another scavenger hunt for paperwork.

Important: Crop insurance requirements vary by policy, crop and cause of loss. Contact your crop insurance agent or Approved Insurance Provider for the documentation and deadlines that apply to your claim.

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