The drought and crop insurance

The Wall Street Journal (see here) has a piece on the extensive use of crop insurance, particularly its impact given current drought conditions.  The graph below looks at the corn crop for the to 10 producers (click to enlarge).

The author of the piece says:

"The most popular insurance policy allows farmers to take advantage of those higher prices. Farmers can insure up to 85% of their average production at fall prices. So for every bushel the crop is short, a farmer can collect the going price in October. Nearly 70% of the nation's crops last year were insured, with levels for corn and soybean acreage even higher. Numbers aren't yet available for 2012."