Crop-Protection UAV Deployment and the Agricultural Insurance Claims-to-Premium Ratio: Evidence from China

Using a balanced panel of 30 Chinese provinces from 2018 to 2024, this study examines the association between the crop-protection unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) service area and the agricultural insurance claims paid-to-premium income ratio. The outcome is interpreted narrowly as annual paid-claims burden relative to premium income, not as an actuarial incurred loss ratio or a measure of profitability, solvency, or sustainability. Two-way fixed-effects models with province-clustered standard errors show that an additional 100,000 hectares of UAV service area is associated with a 1.07-percentage-point lower ratio. Decomposition regressions show a negative association with log claims paid (β = −0.0153, p = 0.040) but no significant association with log premium income (β = −0.0020, p = 0.787). The association remains negative across robustness checks, with weaker evidence for the lagged specification. In 10,000 within-year province-reassignment placebo draws, the observed coefficient is extreme relative to the placebo distribution (randomization p = 0.0001). A clustered bootstrap is consistent with a broad multi-hazard pathway rather than causal mediation. Formal tests show that detectable regional differences are concentrated in comparisons involving the Western region. Given the observational design, the findings document associations rather than causal effects.