Ben Mills is the Vice President of Sales at Carden & Associates, one of the largest crop insurance agencies in the nation. With decades of experience working directly with farmers and ranchers across the Southeast, Ben brings a grounded perspective on the challenges and opportunities within agricultural risk management.
Hosted by Trent Saunders, Senior Advisor at Saunders Land, this episode of In Our Expert Opinion Podcast covers how crop insurance can apply to various operations, including citrus, tomatoes, peppers, row crops like corn, cotton, soybeans, and peanuts, and even livestock. Ben shares practical strategies for managing weather-related risks, explains how recent Farm Bill changes affect coverage, and clears up common misconceptions around eligibility, actual production history (APH), and the complexity of crop insurance policies.
Carden & Associates is a strategic partner of the Lay of the Land Georgia Conference on August 21, 2025. Register today at: SaundersLand.com/Georgia-Conference.
Below is an excerpt from the interview. Listen above for the full podcast.
Ben Mills, Vice President of Sales at Carden & Associates
What does Carden & Associates offer? Carden & Associates is an independent crop insurance agency. We sell a USDA RMA-backed private product to farmers and ranchers. Our home office is in Winter Haven, Florida, but we also have three offices in Georgia, one in Alabama, and one in Missouri. So, we're pretty big here in the Southeast, but we write policies in 25 states right now. We have fun with it; we work with a ton of different farmers and a ton of different commodities.
Which crops are insurable? When people talk about crop insurance, the main commodities are corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat, and peanuts, but it expands well beyond that–you've got livestock, citrus, nursery, blueberries, tomatoes, and peppers.
When you look at the state of Florida, there are a lot of specialty crops. The majority of what we grow here is covered in some fashion, but the majority of crop insurance is for your main commodities. The main one in Florida that's not covered is going to be timber.
What are the biggest changes you've seen in crop insurance? When I started in 2008, a lot of people just looked at crop insurance as something that needed to be done; they got the policy just to satisfy their lender and check that box. Over the years, it's developed into more of a risk management strategy.
It's evolved because of a number of things. It's evolved because of the products that are being put in front of them. It's evolved because of the better agents that are out there; you've got agents that'll really sit down with them and say, ‘Look, these are the products that are available to you now, and this is how it can really affect your operation for the good or for the bad. These products are built to keep you in business. If you look at this level of insurance, based on these subsidies and these prices, we can really tailor this to keep you in business one more year.’
There's really some analysis that can be done to really help the farmers and help their profitability. It's really evolved with what is available and what they've done in the Farm Bill in the past few iterations. It's come a long way.
Trent Saunders of Saunders Land invites Ben Mills of Carden & Associates to discuss crop insurance and agricultural risk management on the In Our Expert Opinion Real Estate Podcast.
What are some misconceptions about crop insurance? When we have these policies in place, it's pretty black and white with what is covered and what's not covered in any given policy. Where the misconceptions come in is who is covered. You'll get some young guy that's trying to get started as a brand new producer, and he's in his year two or three and he's like, 'Okay, if I can just get two or three more years of history under my belt, then I'll be able to get a policy.' That's usually not the case; you don't have to have that 10-year history under your belt to get a policy.
What weather-related risks are covered? With each iteration of the Farm Bill, we keep getting new products rolled down from the USDA RMA that are keeping up with the crazy storms. The last Farm Bill gave us a new product called HIP (Hurricane Insurance Protection). So, farmers are able to buy their policy at a certain coverage level–let's say they have a 75% coverage level. They can now bridge their gap from a 75% coverage level up to 95% if that hurricane comes through on October 10, and they'll get that gap by November 1.
The other biggest thing that we've seen is the subsidies. On any of these policies, they've been able to keep them reasonable, whether you're talking about corn, cotton, soybeans, or the rainfall policy for cattle. The biggest one that's utilized is the PRF (Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage) policy; you see that for your cattle farmers, you see it for your bee guys in apiculture. They've been able to keep those reasonable where it's affordable. If they didn't, it would just drive these guys out of the program. Even with some of the flood events and some of the drought events–you know, if one part of the country is not in drought, the other part is in flood–but they keep it reasonable where these landowners are able to stay in the program.