Winter was cold and had plenty of snow, late spring and active wild animals made farmers’ life rather troublesome – large volume of sowings was damaged. BTA Baltic Insurance Company AAS (hereinafter – BTA) has already received 73% more insurance indemnity claims than during previous spring, and the sum of indemnities payable reached one million euros.

Until the middle of April farmers have already made 180 indemnity claims, whereupon the average indemnity sum is about 8 thousand euros. While the largest indemnity calculated so far reached even 30 thousand euros. Winter crops were the ones that mainly suffered damage – wheat, barley, rye, rape and triticale, and damage was spread all over the country. In Zemgale, damage was more severe and farmers will now have to sow part of the crops repeatedly.

“The beginning of the new season in rural areas appeared to be quite harsh for farmers, because they will have to sow part of the crops repeatedly. Part of crops congealed, others were overheated under thick cover of snow or withered, when snow was falling on the ground that was not yet frozen and the plants have not yet gone into winter hibernation. 2021 was marked by a particularly notable trend – extremely large damage caused by wild animals to crops. Due to restrictions established to conquer the pandemics in winter this year hunters were unable to do their job in the usual volume, and that is why wild animals reproduced and wandered fearlessly in the countryside.”, director of BTA Insurance Claims Handling Department Kārlis Liepiņš explained the reasons of the damage.

BTA is the leading insurer in crops insurance in the market of Latvia, and the company has been offering farmers the opportunity to insure grain crops, bean crops and oilseeds. Moreover, BTA is the first insurer in Latvia that offers an opportunity to insure against damage caused by wild animals and birds, as well as unlawful activity by third parties, lighting and fire risks.

In recent years various natural disasters became an increasingly serious challenge for the harvest to be, but taking into account that there was an option created for the farmers to insure their crops against unfavourable climate conditions and there is also funding allocated by the European Union and the state budget, in 2021 the Ministry of Agriculture did not allocate any compensations from the state budget, therefore, protection of agricultural crops was redirected towards insurance companies.

About BTA

BTA Baltic Insurance Company is one of the leading insurance companies in the Baltics, offering the broadest range of non-life insurance services in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. BTA employs more than 1,000 employees in the Baltics. The largest shareholder of BTA is Vienna Insurance Group AG with close to 200 years of experience in the insurance business. With about 50 companies in 30 countries and more than 25,000 employees, Vienna Insurance Group is a clear market leader in its Central and Eastern European markets, and takes care of more than 22 million customers. Vienna Insurance Group is the best-rated company of ATX, the leading index of Vienna Stock Exchange (since 1994) with a rating of A+ with stable outlook from Standard & Poor’s; its share is also listed on the Prague Stock Exchange. Vienna Insurance Group works in close partnership with Erste Group – the largest retail bank in CEE.

Additional information:
Elīna Rasmane
Marketing and Public Relations Department Director
BTA Baltic Insurance Company AAS
e-mail elina.rasmane@bta.lv