Design of agricultural insurance policy for tea tree freezing damage in Zhejiang Province, China

This paper proposes a method to design freezing damage policy-based agricultural insurance contracts for tea trees (an economic crop) in the Zhejiang Province of China, using a weather index. Data of economic losses caused by freezing damage, and the beginning dates of tea plucking (BDTP) from the Agricultural Bureau of each county in Zhejiang Province and tea planters, and meteorological observations were collected to establish the prediction model for BDTP, and to determine the relationship between economic loss rates caused by freezing damage at or before BDTP, and the minimum temperatures for “Wuniuzao,” “Longjing-43,” and “Jiukeng” teas. Based on the information diffusion theoretical model, occurrence probabilities of BDTP from 1 February to 20 April and lower temperatures at different levels are calculated. Then, the insurance premium rates of the three tea tree species can be estimated. Lastly, the tea tree freezing damage insurance contracts are designed, combining the advantages of regional yield-based index insurance and weather-based index insurance.