Authors: Walker Davis and Amy Hagerman
The Crop and Livestock Income Protection (CLIP) product, first offered in 2026, acts as an umbrella policy layered on top of your existing Revenue Protection (RP) policies, offering a higher coverage level across two or more different spring crops grown in the same county. Producers do still need to enroll in RP for each individual crop to be eligible for CLIP. RP policies trigger as they normally would, where CLIP triggers when combined revenues fall below the CLIP guarantee.
In a year with a revenue loss, indemnities trigger in two stages. First, individual crop revenue losses still work as they normally would. Consider a producer who has both corn and grain sorghum in a single county that experiences losses for both crops. The producer would work with his or her crop insurance agent to report the loss for each crop individually. Second, after all RP policy production to count valuations are determined, the combined revenue to count of the CLIP insured commodities is compared to the CLIP guarantee. If there is a shortfall, CLIP pays the difference. Because CLIP can be set at a higher coverage level than your underlying RP, it may trigger even when neither individual RP policy does.
CLIP coverage levels run from 55% to 85%, capped at 25 points above your lowest individual RP policy coverage election. To show what this means in practice, consider a Garfield County, Oklahoma producer with 500 acres each of corn and grain sorghum, both under RP at 75% coverage—a common coverage level in this area. The producer’s cost of that base coverage and comparisons of three options are provided in Table 1: (1) increase the coverage level of individual RP policies, (2) adding CLIP umbrella policy on top of 75% coverage RP, and (3) adding a Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) area coverage on top of 75% RP policies. SCO will trigger based on county average revenue, and preference may be heavily influenced by field level performance as compared to the county average. A producer cannot enroll in both SCO and CLIP. This comparison is shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Premium Cost Comparison: Revenue Protection Coverage Level Increase vs. CLIP
| Scenario | RP Level | Add On | Total Premium | Producer Premium | Subsidy Amount |
| Base | 75% | None | $56,777 | $22,711 | $34,066 |
| RP1 | 80% | None | $66,439 | $32,555 | $33,884 |
| RP2 | 85% | None | $77,330 | $45,625 | $31,705 |
| CLIP1 | 75% | CLIP 80% | $59,467 | $23,494 | $35,982 |
| CLIP2 | 75% | CLIP 85% | $63,006 | $25,452 | $37,554 |
| SCO | 75% | SCO 86% | $69,511 | $25,258 | $44,253 |
Note: Premium estimates were generated using the USDA Risk Management Agency Cost Estimator tool for the 2026 crop year using county transitional (T) yields. Individual producer premiums will vary based on their actual APH yield history, total acreage of commodities insured by CLIP, unit structure, insurable type, production practice, and location (e.g. state, county, and map area if applicable).
The simple comparison in a single county offers a few insights.
- CLIP offers comparable individual-based revenue coverage at significantly lower producer-paid premium. CLIP1 yields savings of $9,061, or 28% less than RP1 for comparable 80% coverage protection for producers growing multiple spring crops.
- Savings widen substantially at higher coverage levels. Electing 85% RP on both crops individually carries a producer premium of $45,625, while a CLIP 85% umbrella policy achieves comparable protection for a producer premium of $25,452.
- SCO offers a comparable producer cost to CLIP but with a fundamentally different trigger. The SCO scenario (86% coverage) has a near-identical producer premium to a CLIP policy with 85% coverage, differing by just $194 for the entire operation. However, these two products behave very differently at claim time: SCO triggers on county-average revenue loss, where CLIP triggers on personal revenue loss. Your crop insurance agent can provide a comparison of SCO with CLIP for an individual operation, including the production history of the fields in question and the county benchmarks.
CLIP may provide a viable option to increase protection for a producer growing multiple spring crops. Although it cannot currently be used for winter crops such as wheat or oats, producers do have the option to include under CLIP livestock insured through the Weaned Calf Risk Protection program. CLIP is now available in 13 states. These states include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. It must be purchased by the earliest sales closing date of your eligible crops and is sold exclusively through licensed crop insurance agents.
Davis, Walker, and Amy Hagerman. “Crop and Livestock Income Protection (CLIP) Basics for Spring Crop Producers.” Southern Ag Today 6(22.4). May 28, 2026. Permalink
