By the end of October, insurers paid out four times as much in total for drought damage alone. In the coming period, this amount is expected to increase by HUF 1.2 billion, according to the Association of Hungarian Insurers (MABISZ), portfolio.hu wrote.

HUF 39.96 billion (~EUR 98.24 million) were paid this year for drought damages under about 8,500 claims. This uptrend of payments is reflected in the fact that during the same period last year, total number of crop insurance claims was around 7,000, and the amount of damage reached HUF 10 billion, of which 4,500 of ice damage claims accounted for HUF 8 billion. Now the drought damages alone are four times that amount, and further HUF 1.2 billion of payments can be expected soon.

Currently, only 4 of the 24 MABISZ member insurers offer national coverage. This shows that agriculture is not an extremely profitable and is high-risk sector for insurance.

Insurers' agricultural premium revenue in 2021 totaled HUF 22 billion, which is a little more than half of this year's drought damages.

Based on the reports, twelve counties of Hungary were particularly severely affected by the drought. Mainly corn and sunflower, along with wheat, barley, canola, triticale, soy, as well as apples, pears, plums, and grapes were affected by the drought.

*EUR 1 = HUF 406.74 (01.11.2022)