His Story

Jayme Davis is a member of a family of farmers, starting with his dad who began working the land in 1974.  With his wife Jennifer, he has a daughter and three sons.  The two oldest, at ages 6 and 8, love being on the farm where Jayme runs an LLC operation milking cows, raising steer, and growing row crops with his brother, Brad.  Their sister has a herd of her own and their uncle helps take care of their 350 dairy cows.  Jayme takes care of the finances and the 2,000 acres of corn, beans, wheat and hay they grow while his brother feeds steer and raises bull calves.

“It’s working the land and with the cattle that I like – and with farming you are your own boss,” says Jayme.  But when it comes to challenges on the job, “the biggest one is the weather.”  In his area, he has noticed an increase in severe weather since he started farming in high school. “It’s changed – seems like you go from one extreme to another and every year is different.  We’ll get bad hail one year then wind the next.  We’ve had a lot of rain and real bad heat too.”

This year’s excessive rain and heat has been especially difficult for Jayme’s operation, since “it’s been a struggle to keep the cattle cool, having to run more fans for the dairy cows, and it’s been hard getting in the fields to spray.  The way it’s been, when the weather breaks you need to be ready to go and just hope nothing breaks down.”

After attending a presentation on Total Weather Insurance (TWI) given by his grain dealer, who is also a crop insurance agent with SMG Insurance, Jayme contacted him to talk about purchasing a policy.  “It seemed like a pretty good thing so I thought I should try it out.  The premium wasn’t too high because if bad weather does happen you get a payout.  It helps with the yield loss if there’s too much rain or heat.”

The ease of purchasing and understanding the policy was also big draw for Jayme.  “It’s simple and easy to understand.  You don’t need actual production history or to deal with adjusters and there isn’t a lot of paperwork.”

“I’m very satisfied with the way the Heat Stress component of Total Weather Insurance worked out.  We had a lot of hot days and it seemed hotter than normal.  The weather that was reported on my policy was really accurate compared to what we saw.  The Climate Corporation helps out with things you can’t control like the weather.  It’s a good safety net, something to help with federal crop insurance.”  And with the settlement he received for the Heat Stress component of his TWI policy, Jayme was able to upgrade some of his machinery and pay off some bills.