Key Takeaways
- Crawford & Company has published a report, Super El Niño – Potential Impacts for Agriculture in the UK, warning that a particularly strong El Niño event could raise both the frequency and severity of UK agricultural insurance claims.
- The report flags heavier rainfall, flooding and more frequent storms as likely drivers of higher insured losses, including flood and storm damage, livestock impacts and business interruption.
- A key concern is the growing likelihood of compound weather events — drought and flooding within the same season — which the report says could significantly increase claims severity and complexity.
- UK farmland is already emerging from a period of prolonged dryness followed by exceptionally wet weather, leaving soils stressed and resilience reduced heading into any super El Niño event.
Crawford & Company Warns of Heightened UK Agriculture Risk
Crawford & Company has published a new report, Super El Niño – Potential Impacts for Agriculture in the UK, examining how a particularly strong El Niño event could create wide-ranging risks for the UK's agricultural sector. The report warns that heavier rainfall, flooding and more frequent storm activity are likely to drive higher levels of insured loss, including flood and storm damage, adverse impacts on livestock, and business interruption across farming operations.
Secondary Risks Could Complicate Claims
Beyond direct physical damage, the report points to several secondary impacts that could influence loss development and claims complexity. Excessively wet conditions may hinder crop establishment, increase soil erosion and nutrient loss, and push up feed costs for livestock producers — factors that could lead to longer-tail losses, higher claims costs and greater pressure on margins, particularly for policies tied to yield shortfalls or input cost volatility.
The report notes that UK farming is already emerging from a period of prolonged dryness followed by exceptionally wet weather, leaving soils stressed, water reserves depleted and overall resilience reduced. For insurers, that reduced resilience can heighten vulnerability across insured portfolios, increasing the likelihood of repeat claims within short timeframes.
Compound Weather Events Add Complexity
A key finding is the growing likelihood of compound weather events, where drought and flooding occur within the same season. Farms could see drought-related yield reductions followed by flood-related physical damage within a single policy period, significantly increasing both the severity and complexity of agricultural claims — a particular challenge for underwriting and loss adjustment, since multiple triggers may need to be considered within one claim lifecycle.
The report also warns that reduced crop yields in other major agricultural producing regions could add commodity price volatility, potentially raising costs for feed, fertilizer and other inputs for UK farmers, with knock-on effects for insurers through larger sums insured, bigger deductibles and greater business interruption exposure. Livestock producers may face added risk too: warmer, more humid conditions combined with greater weather variability could increase disease prevalence and parasite burdens in grazing systems, raising the likelihood of mortality and morbidity claims.
Crawford & Company Executive on the Report
“The impact of a super El Niño on UK agricultural claims is unlikely to be driven by a single weather event. Instead, it is the interaction between threshold-driven crop responses, sequential weather extremes and wider system pressures that creates a heightened and multi-dimensional risk for UK farming,” said Andrew Shaw, Head of Agriculture, UK & Ireland at Crawford & Company.
Preparing for a More Volatile Season
Crawford says its network of specialist agricultural adjusters in the UK positions it to support insurers and policyholders as agricultural losses grow more complex. The report encourages farmers to strengthen drainage infrastructure, keep cropping plans flexible and review input sourcing strategies now, steps it says can improve resilience and support more effective risk transfer and insurance outcomes as weather patterns grow more volatile.
Read the complete report here.
