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AI-powered crop insurance could lower premiums on low-risk fields. A new crop insurance program aims to shake up the industry by pricing risk field by field instead of county by county, potentially lowering premiums on low-risk ground. Insurance brokerage firm Aon is teaming up with SAGE, an agricultural risk intelligence company that uses AI, to offer a new precision crop insurance program, with premiums tailored to an individual field's risk. Robert Bonnie, a former USDA undersecretary for farm production and conservation, and technology executive Bill Veghte, both co-founders of SAGE, are two of the brains behind the program, which aims to offer a lower-priced alternative to federal crop insurance for farmers with lower-risk ground. Federal crop insurance is priced based on the average risk in each county even though every farmer's field is different, leading some farmers to pay premiums that don't necessarily fit their lands and soils, Veghte told Agri-Pulse in an interview. "Crop insurance is really, really popular, and a lot of growers rely on it," Bonnie said. "At the same time, I think there are a lot of growers also that understand that the price they're paying for USDA isn't entirely reflective of actually what they're doing on the ground." In an interview with Agri-Pulse, Bonnie said USDA has previously explored the idea of allowing policies to be written on a field-by-field basis, but ran into technological and capacity restraints preventing it from doing so. But by using artificial intelligence, SAGE can pull together data from farm equipment, USDA, satellite observation, scientific papers and deterministic process models from universities to conduct those risk assessments field by field. SAGE will serve as the "analytical engine that allows Aon to price risk and write policies," Bonnie said. Meanwhile, another company, AgriCap, will serve as the preferred insurance partner to sell the option in the 2027 crop cycle, according to a release. It's easy to be "in the know" about what's happening in Washington, D.C. Sign up for a FREE month of Agri-Pulse news! Simply click here Using the AI-driven, field-by-field risk assessment approach, the new option may also help to "de-risk" use of conservation and regenerative agricultural practices, Bonnie noted. Soil data will be among the factors considered in the system. "What's most important here is they're connecting soil into the risk equation," Travis Stewart, a senior vice president at Aon, told Agri-Pulse. "When we then understand soil as the underlying asset, we can understand if there is increasing or diminishing value to that asset." SAGE will also analyze grower data and offer readings, metrics and conservation practice recommendations to farmers, Bonnie said. SAGE and Aon are also part of a Michigan pilot project developed by the Resilience in Agricultural Lending and Insurance Coalition and backed by the state's agriculture department that will offer lower premiums to corn and soybean farmers in four counties who use practices like cover crops and no-till starting in 2027. Tina Owens, who focuses on regenerative agriculture systems and investment at Transformational Investing in Food Systems, a nonprofit, and also founded RALIC, called the new program a "game-changer" and said that SAGE's AI-engine "has been creating the insights" needed to write soil health into crop insurance moving forward. "The next 10 years of the regenerative ag and soil health movement is going to be about how this rewrite of actuarial services and AI data insights completely shifts the way the financial sector gets engaged in this industry," Owens told Agri-Pulse. "And SAGE is a stellar example." The option will be offered in the 2027 crop year on corn and soybean acres across 15 states in the corn belt and is intended to "compliment federal crop insurance by more precisely matching coverage to the value being protected and the underlying risk at the field level," according to a press release. Veghte said crop insurance agencies in the corn belt interested in offering the program should contact AgriCap. More information about the program is available on SAGE's website.

Aon and SAGE bring field-level agricultural intelligence to crop insurance. New precision crop insurance program for corn and soybean growers to expand across 15 states for the 2027 crop year. October 29, 2026 08:00 ET | Source: Sage, Inc. CHICAGO and MENLO PARK, Calif., Oct. 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Aon plc (NYSE:AON), a leading global professional services firm, and SAGE, an AI-native agricultural risk intelligence company, today announced the launch of a new precision crop insurance program in the U.S. to assess agricultural risk more accurately and help price insurance more effectively. In collaboration with AgriCap, a specialty agricultural insurance provider, the program will be available to corn and soybean growers in 15 states for the 2027 crop year. The coverage is designed to complement federal crop insurance by more precisely matching coverage to the value being protected and the underlying risk at the field level. Federal crop insurance which covers nearly 90 percent of U.S. corn and soybean acreage[1], is priced on the average risk in each county, even though risk varies widely from field to field, leaving many growers paying premiums that may not reflect their individual risk. The new program is being tested through a four-county pilot developed by the Resilience in Agricultural Lending and Insurance Coalition (RALIC), with funding provided in part from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. The pilot encompasses more than one million agricultural acres, representing approximately 12 percent of Michigan farmland.[2] [,] [3] Aon brings leading Risk Capital data and analytics, capabilities and expertise to translate SAGE's insights into insurance solutions and connects those solutions with the capital needed to support them. "With this new approach, we can translate what is happening on the land into risk signals that the insurance market can understand and act upon," said Jonathan Sherrill, Senior Vice President, Agriculture Resilience Center, Aon. "When we make resilience visible, it can be underwritten, which means we can syndicate capital behind it." SAGE has built deeply contextualized AI models that combine the observation and understanding of soil, water, weather and human interaction. By combining these complex data sets that historically could not be analyzed together at scale, patterns of risk and resilience can be understood that were previously difficult or impossible to identify. "Farmers have understood that every field is different, but the ability of the USDA and the insurance industry to understand those differences at scale has been a significant obstacle," said Bill Veghte, CEO and Co-Founder, SAGE. "The SAGE AI engine brings together billions of datapoints together in a way that simply wasn't feasible before advancements in AI, creating a much clearer picture of the factors influencing risk and resilience from the individual field to the entire U.S. corn belt." "Field-level intelligence provides an opportunity to reward farmers' investments in resilience through better crop insurance options," said Robert Bonnie, former USDA Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation and SAGE co-founder. The Michigan pilot represents an early demonstration of how field-level agricultural intelligence can support insurance solutions at scale. Building on those insights, Aon and SAGE are working with AgriCap as a preferred insurance partner for the 2027 crop cycle, providing an early proof point for a model designed to extend beyond a single geography, crop or project. "Crop insurance is central to American agriculture and RALIC developed this pilot to test whether insurance could better recognize farmers who build resilience on their land," said Tina Owens, Founder of RALIC, a program of Transformational Investing in Food Systems. "The work in Michigan is showing real demand from growers, and we are looking forward to helping expand precision crop insurance across the corn belt." Growers and insurance agents interested in the precision crop insurance program can learn more ahead of the spring 2027 sign-up period at sage.ag. About Aon Aon plc (NYSE: AON) exists to shape decisions for the better - to protect and enrich the lives of people around the world. Our colleagues provide our clients in over 120 countries and sovereignties with advice and solutions that give them the clarity and confidence to make better decisions to protect and grow their business. About SAGE SAGE, a public benefit corporation, delivers a risk-intelligence platform for agricultural lands. Its AI engine translates a century of soil and agricultural knowledge into field-level insights for better decision-making for farmers, insurers and capital providers. Starting with crop insurance, SAGE helps growers and the risk capital that backs them see agricultural risk with greater precision, building a more resilient future for the land and everyone who depends on it. SAGE was co-founded by Bill Veghte, CEO, a senior technology leader with deep farming roots; Robert Bonnie, who oversaw the federal crop insurance system as USDA's Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation and spent three decades as a leader in land conservation, agriculture and forestry; and Deon Blaauw, an AI scientist with decades of software invention across a wide range of fields. Learn more at https://sage.ag.