The Evaluation of Effective Factors on Apple Gardeners' Willingness to Pay for Weather-Based Index Insurance in Damavand County

This study has considered the factors regarding the willingness to pay weather-based index insurance of apple gardeners of Damavand county in the proposed plan. For this purpose, Logit and Tobit models were used. Required information were collected through interviews and completing questionnaires of 307 gardeners of Damavand region by stratified random sampling with suitable assigning. Results of Logit model showed that factors such as education level, garden area, using current insurance, garden construction region, familiarity with weather-based index insurance and the type of gardener activity have a positive and significant effect, and gardeners' satisfaction of the current insurance has a negative effect on the acceptance probability of the proposed plan of weather-based index insurance. The average willingness to pay apple gardeners' premium in Damavand county has been calculated as 7900 thousand Rials per hectare. Also, the results of Tobit model indicated that the level of education, garden area, using the current insurance, the location of garden construction, the level of familiarity with weather-based index insurance, and the type of gardener activity have a positive effect on the level of willingness to pay insurance premium of apple gardeners. Since such factors as the gardener's education level and his knowledge about the weather-based index insurance has a positive and significant impact on acceptability probability of the weather-based index insurance and willingness to pay premium, Thus, to introduce the weather-based index insurance and offer the advantages and shortcomings of current insurance system and weather-based index insurance, it is suggested that agricultural insurance fund provides full information for gardeners to improve their consciousness level and provide a public knowledge before this proposed plan is implemented.