Farmer suicides in India can reduce if the government modifies the crop insurance scheme by making the premiums more affordable and with a wider coverage of crops, experts say. "The present crop insurance is not farmer-centric but area-centric, and the claims given by insurance companies often fall short of the losses incurred. The involvement of state governments also makes it time-consuming to settle claims. There is a need to restructure the present schemes," said a government official. Corp insurance in the present form in India is unable to address the issues of the farmer suicides as many small and marginal farmers are not in a position to pay premiums, and losses due to hailstorms and cloudbursts are add-on products, requiring additional higher premiums. Banks have been doing their bit by restructuring their agri loans. State Bank of India (SBI) restructured Rs 560 crore of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans to help farmers tide over natural calamities during 2015-16. Though KCC is a comprehensive product, it covers only crops notified by the government. "If the crops are not notified then they are outside the ambit of insurance coverage, which is resulting in losses for the farmers leading to loss of lives .We have directed banks to undertake awareness programmes so that farmers renew their insurance on time," said the official. Banks like SBI suggested that KCC should cover all the crops raised annually instead of restricting coverage to selective crops and specific seasons like kharif and rabi. The bank suggested that the government should bear the whole crop insurance premium for small farmers and marginal farmers, while premium for add-ons should be kept higher to be borne by farmers. They said a uniform crop insurance should be fixed for all crops. Although while arriving at the scale of finance for crop loans, insurance premium is factored in it, the premium in respect of cotton, onion and sugar is very high at 21%, 17% and 8.50%, respectively. A study conducted by SBI on weather-based crop insurance showed that premiums are exorbitantly high, natural calamities like hailstorm and cloudburst are add-on products with very high premiums. Last year, grapes in Nashik district were severely damaged due to hailstorm during February-March 2015. However, as per the insurance coverage, unseasonal rains during October 14- January 15 were covered, but not hailstorm. As a result, farmers faced severe losses. According to statistics by Nabard during 2014-15 banks have disbursed loans of Rs 8,40,643 crore as against a target of Rs 800,000 crore, of this SBI alone accounted for agri-loan outstanding of Rs 119,782 crore.