OREANDA-NEWS. February 04, 2010. Ingosstrakh OJSIC and the Government of the Kaluga Region have entered into the Agreement on co-operation to implement the actions of the State Program for Agriculture Development and Regulation of Markets of Agricultural Products, Raw Materials and Food in 2008-2012 in the area of Risk Reduction in Agriculture. The Agreement is effective until 2012.

The main objective of the signed document is interaction of the Parties for developing the agroindustrial complex of the Kaluga Region, creation of favorable conditions for agricultural performance in the Region, reduction of various risks of agricultural goods producers and state-supported insurance of their property interests.

In accordance with the Agreement, Ingosstrakh is obliged not only to provide insurance protection to companies, but also to submit to the Government of the Kaluga Region an annual report of the amounts of insurance compensations. Besides, the insurer undertakes preparation and execution of a number of regional programs connected with the implementation of the actions of the State Program for risk reduction in agriculture.

In its turn, the Government of the Kaluga Region will assist Ingosstrakh in popularizing the state-supported insurance among the agricultural goods producers and help in establishing co-operation with the executive government bodies supervising the agroindustrial complex, the Kaluga Region business community representatives and agricultural goods producers.

According to Mr. Anatoly Artamonov, the Governor of the Kaluga Region, 'the Region is interested in a stable development of the agricultural sector as it is one of growth points for our economy.'

Mr. Alexander Grigoriev, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Ingosstrakh, said, 'We support actively the state agricultural policy intended to minimize risks accompanying the agroindustrial production. The state's focus on implementing long-term national agricultural projects, the growing investment attractiveness of the regions give reason to forecast an increase in growth rates of the agricultural market and, consequently, broaden options for insurance in this sector. Ingosstrakh has accumulated experience in insurance and loss settlement in the agroindustrial complex. The Company takes an active and tough position against sham agricultural insurance. We shall do our best to create a transparent market of agroindustrial insurance in Russia in order to provide the domestic agricultural goods producers with quality insurance protection and timely loss settlement. Therefore, the Agreement with the Government of the Kaluga Region is strategic for the Company just like the whole area of agricultural insurance'. He also made the point that the signing of the Agreement had become possible owing to hard fruitful work and professionalism of the experts from the Kaluga Region's authorities, including the Region's Ministry of Agriculture and the staff of Ingosstrakh branch in the city of Kaluga.

It will be recalled that, according to the preliminary data, in 2009 Ingosstrakh paid over 135 million rubles to the domestic agricultural goods producers (the increase of about 70% as compared with 2008) and, in addition, 154 million rubles is a reserve for the claimed losses, which occurred in 2009 and the compensations for which are supposed to be effected as early as this year. Last year the main reasons of loss occurrence for the agricultural goods producers were such dangerous agrometeorological events as dry weather, hail, winter-killing and frost. In 2009 Ingosstrakh also effected compensations in connection with physical loss to cattle stock, pigs, sheep, horses, commodity inventories of grain, production and agricultural equipment, thefts of farm vehicles, structural damages, etc.

The Parties have confirmed that the signed Agreement is in no way intended to limit co-operation of the Government of the Kaluga Region with other insurance companies or activities of other insurers in the Region.