A lower 2025 premium cost makes the Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO) crop insurance product worth consideration. ECO is a county-level, area-based crop insurance product offering coverage for a portion of the underlying crop insurance policy deductible, like Revenue Protection (RP).

For 2025, ECO premiums are significantly lower since the Risk Management Agency (RMA) increased the cost share from its previous 44% and 51% to a flat 65%. This makes ECO more attractive since individual product guarantees may fall short of total production costs.

ECO offers coverage bands down to 86% of guaranteed yield or revenue. Farmers choose 90% or 95% trigger levels. Unlike the Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO), ECO can be used with the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) commodity program. It can also be used independently of SCO. This provides a higher level of county-based protection.

While ECO triggers payments earlier than SCO, historical data suggests ECO payments in some counties haven’t exceeded farmer-paid premiums in many Midwest counties, even with the increased cost share.

Farmers considering ECO have some varying strategy choices. They may choose to use the coverage without purchasing SCO. This would avoid the SCO premium cost and preserve the option to use ARC-CO. Farmers can also use the protection level to lower ECO premium costs. This will result in lower payments if they occur.

A 2025 Crop Insurance Decision Tool from the University of Illinois is available to help calculate premiums.

Read more about the Enhanced Coverage Option for 2025 here.

Citation: Schnitkey, G., N. Paulson and C. Zulauf. “Enhanced Coverage Option for 2025.” farmdoc daily (15):26, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, February 11, 2025.