PMFBY Rabi Enrollment 2026-27: Premium, Deadline and Claim Process

Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is the Government of India's crop insurance scheme, launched in 2016, that pays farmers for yield loss from natural calamities, pests and diseases. In rabi, it covers notified crops such as wheat, barley, gram, lentil, mustard, peas and notified horticulture crops in each district.

The scheme covers four stages of risk. Understanding which stage your loss falls in decides how your claim is settled.

For rabi, the risks that hit most often are unseasonal rain and hail in February and March, frost in mustard and gram, and wet weather at harvest. These are exactly the cases where the 72-hour reporting rule matters.

You pay a fixed share of the sum insured, and the Centre and state pay the balance of the actuarial premium. According to the PIB note on PMFBY, the government bears 95 to 98.5% of the premium, shared 50:50 between Centre and state, and 90:10 in the North Eastern and Himalayan states.

The ₹60,000 figure is only an example. The sum insured per hectare is fixed by the district level technical committee, usually equal to the scale of finance for that crop, so it differs by district. Earlier notifications in Madhya Pradesh, for instance, put the farmer share for irrigated wheat at about ₹540 per hectare and for mustard at about ₹405 per hectare. Use the premium calculator on pmfby.gov.in to see your exact figure.

In most states the rabi 2026-27 enrollment cut-off is 31 December 2026 for both loanee and non-loanee farmers. Some states set earlier dates for early-sown crops, and the state notification is final.

• Rabi enrollment usually opens in October or November after the state issues its notification.

• Loanee farmers who want to opt out must give a written declaration to their bank at least 7 days before the cut-off.

• If you change the crop you sow, inform your bank or insurer at least 2 days before the cut-off so the policy is corrected.

• Farmers with KCC accounts in more than one bank should get insured through only one and tell the others in writing.

• Late enrollment after the cut-off is not accepted, even if the portal is still open for other states.

All farmers growing notified crops in notified areas can enroll, including sharecroppers and tenant farmers. Enrollment is voluntary for everyone since Kharif 2020.

• Aadhaar card and Aadhaar-linked mobile number.

• Bank passbook or cancelled cheque of an Aadhaar-seeded account.

• Land record: khasra, khatauni, 7/12 or RoR, or a tenancy or sharecropping agreement as the state allows.

• Sowing declaration or sowing certificate from the patwari, sarpanch or agriculture officer, where required.

• Farmer ID from the AgriStack Farmer Registry, where the state has made it part of enrollment.

Non-loanee farmers can register themselves on pmfby.gov.in or through a Common Service Centre. Loanee farmers are enrolled by their bank unless they opt out.

1. Open pmfby.gov.in and click Farmer Corner, then Apply for Crop Insurance yourself.

2. Log in as a guest farmer with your mobile number and OTP.

3. Fill in your details: name as in Aadhaar, bank account, state, district, village and category.

4. Add the crop, season (Rabi 2026-27), survey or khasra number and area sown.

5. Upload land record, sowing certificate and bank passbook as asked.

6. Pay the premium online and download the policy receipt with the application number.

7. Check the policy status on the portal or the Crop Insurance App after a few days.

If you use a CSC, the operator does the same steps. Take your documents and keep the printed receipt. Check that the crop and area on the receipt match your field, since a wrong entry is a common reason for claim rejection.

How you claim depends on the type of loss. Area-wide yield loss is settled automatically, while local damage like hail needs you to report it within 72 hours.

For hail, inundation, lightning fire or post-harvest rain

1. Report within 72 hours on the Crop Insurance App, by calling 14447, or at your bank, insurer office or agriculture office.

2. Give crop, survey number, area affected, date and cause of loss.

3. Upload clear geotagged photos of the damaged crop from the app.

4. An insurance surveyor inspects the field, usually with a local official, and records the percentage loss.

5. The claim is paid by DBT to your bank account after assessment.

For widespread yield loss

No application is needed. Yield is estimated through crop cutting experiments, with 30% weightage to the YES-TECH remote sensing system from Kharif 2023. If the area's actual yield is below the threshold yield, all insured farmers in that area get a claim. Insurers who delay payment are liable to pay 12% interest to farmers.

For area-based yield loss, the claim is a share of your sum insured equal to the shortfall in yield. The formula is: claim = (threshold yield minus actual yield) divided by threshold yield, multiplied by sum insured.

Threshold yield is the average of the five highest yields out of the last seven years for that crop and area, multiplied by the indemnity level of 70%, 80% or 90% set by the state. For example, if the threshold yield of wheat in your insurance unit is 40 quintals per hectare and the measured yield comes to 30 quintals, the shortfall is 25%. On a sum insured of ₹60,000 per hectare, the claim works out to ₹15,000 per hectare.

This is why claims differ between neighbouring villages. The insurance unit, usually a village or gram panchayat for major crops, decides whose yield is measured.

Two new covers started from Kharif 2026. Crop loss from wild animal attack is now the fifth add-on under the localised risk category, and paddy inundation has been brought back as a localised calamity.

For wild animal damage, states notify the animals and vulnerable districts, and farmers must report within 72 hours on the Crop Insurance App with geotagged photos. States with high human-wildlife conflict, including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Karnataka and Uttarakhand, are expected to benefit most. Check whether your state has notified this add-on for rabi 2026-27.

On scale, 4.19 crore farmers enrolled in 2024-25, and claims of ₹1.83 lakh crore have been paid to 22.67 crore farmer applicants since 2016.

Most rejected claims come from wrong data or late reporting, not from the insurer refusing a valid loss. Fixing records at enrollment time prevents most problems.

• Crop or area entered wrongly at enrollment, or crop change not informed.

• Local damage reported after 72 hours or with no photos.

• Bank account not Aadhaar-seeded, so the payment bounces.

• Loss caused by an excluded reason such as war, theft, malicious damage or preventable risks like poor management.

• Duplicate policy on the same land through two banks.

Insurance pays for loss, but it does not replace good crop care. Seed treatment cuts early disease risk that insurance rarely compensates for. For wheat, a tebuconazole 2% DS seed dresser helps against loose smut and seed-borne diseases, and a Trichoderma viride biofungicide can be used for seed and soil treatment in gram and mustard against wilt and root rot. For mustard, a balanced basal package like a mustard soil kit supports stronger plants. Follow the product label and local agriculture officer advice.

Enroll as soon as your crop is sown and your state opens rabi 2026-27, without waiting for the last week of December when portals and CSCs are crowded. Save the Crop Insurance App on your phone and the number 14447, so you can report hail or rain damage within 72 hours.

FPOs can help members by running a single enrollment camp with a CSC operator and collecting sowing certificates in one visit. It is one of the cheapest risk covers a rabi farmer can buy.