Most farmers in South Africa use standard insurance to protect their crops against natural disasters
such as hail or strong winds. However, no South African insurance contracts exist to compensate
for too much or too little rain (although floods are covered), or which will pay out if
temperatures were too high or too low for a certain period of time for the relevant crop.
Weather derivatives - which farmers may employ to ensure crops against adverse temperatures -
do exist, but these are mostly available in foreign markets in the form of Heating Degree Days
contracts and Cooling Degree Day contracts and are used chiefly by energy companies. Some
South African over-the-counter weather derivatives are available, but trading in these is rare and
seldom used.
The goal of this dissertation is to establish a pricing equation for weather derivatives specifically
for use in the South African market. This equation will be derived using a similar methodology
to that employed for credit default swaps. The premium derived will be designed to compensate
grape farmers from losses arising from two different climatic outcomes - in this case temperature
and precipitation. These derivatives will be region and crop specific and the formulation will be
sufficiently flexible as to allow for further climatic possibilities (which may be added at a later
stage).
These weather derivative premiums will then be compared to standard crop insurance to establish
economic viability of the products and recommendations will be made regarding their usage.
The possibility of the simultaneous use of these derivatives and standard crop insurance for optimal
crop coverage will also be explored and discussed. / Thesis (M.Com. (Risk management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/4456 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Holemans, Amelia Nadine |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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