Watts and Associates Inc

What Watts and Associates Inc does

Watts and Associates, Inc. (W&A) is a Montana-based economic consulting firm specializing in agricultural risk management. Founded by Tim Watts in the 1980s as a farm and ranch restructuring practice (Watts and Associates Management Analysis, formed 1986) and incorporated as a distinct entity in 1992, the firm evolved into a specialized crop insurance and agricultural data-science consultancy. It serves four primary client groups: government agencies (notably the USDA Risk Management Agency), crop insurance providers and agents, agricultural producer organizations, and individual farmers and ranchers. The business is organized into four interdependent divisions: Crop Insurance Division, Data Science for Agriculture, Software Tool Development, and Crop Insurance Agent Training.

The firm's technical work centers on designing crop insurance products that cover yield, price, revenue, or margin losses on an individual, area, or index basis. It applies financial engineering to rate crop insurance products in real time and uses production, market pricing, planted acreage, and insurance performance data to build backcasts and simulate future program performance. These analytical outputs are operationalized through web-based decision-support applications that translate statistical analysis into graphs, charts, maps, and tables for agricultural decision-makers. W&A was instrumental in establishing the federal 508(h) process that allows producer groups to introduce new crop insurance products, and following the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000 it became one of only four organizations authorized to bid on RMA crop insurance contracts.

Revenue is generated through professional services rather than productized software licensing: government contracts (the RMA Base Contract is described as the bedrock of the Crop Insurance Division), crop insurance product development engagements, agent training programs (academies, workshops, seminars, online resources), and custom software tool development. Go-to-market is direct enterprise/field consulting supplemented by an agent-training network and producer services. Pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed. The company operates from two Montana offices (Billings HQ and Bozeman) with a distributed workforce of 40+ team members across 14+ states, and has implemented agricultural risk technology internationally in Canada, India, and Ukraine.

Name

Watts and Associates Inc

Legal name

Watts and Associates, Inc.

Website

https://wattsandassociates.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1992

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Watts and Associates is a Montana-based economic consulting firm specializing in agricultural risk management, providing crop insurance product development, data science, decision-support software, and agent training to the USDA Risk Management Agency, insurers, producer groups, and farmers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Agricultural Risk Management Consulting

NAICS

Farm Management Services (115116), Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services (54169)

SIC

Agricultural Services (700), Services-Engineering, Accounting, Research, Management (8700)

akta.pro primary industry

Farm Risk Management & Insurance Advisory (AFACAJAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Farm Technology Enablement & Data Integration Advisory (FMIS/ERP, IoT, Decision Support) (AFACAJAG), Carbon, Sustainability & Farm Certification Support (Agro-Environmental Advisory) (AFACABAL)

Keywords

• Agricultural risk management
• Crop insurance design
• Farm restructuring services
• Agricultural data science
• Insurance agent training

Headquarters

HQ city

Billings

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Government Contracts: Base Contract with USDA Risk Management Agency for crop insurance initiatives - W&A is one of four organizations authorized to bid on RMA contracts. This was the bedrock foundation of the Crop Insurance Division following the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000.
2. Crop Insurance Product Development Services: Development of private supplemental crop insurance offerings and foundational policy and framework designs for national crop insurance programs
3. Agent Training Services: Crop insurance academy, day-long workshops, half-day refresher courses, weekly continuous education seminars, and online resource library for insurance agents
4. Software Tool Development: Creation of web-based applications from concept to full production implementation and continuous improvement for agricultural risk management

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Watts and Associates provides specialized consulting, product development, software tools, and training services focused on agricultural risk management. The firm designs crop insurance products covering yield, price, revenue, and margin losses on individual, area, or index bases, develops web-based decision-support applications, and delivers training for crop insurance agents.

Product overview

Watts and Associates Inc (W&A) operates as a single unified service platform for agricultural risk management, organized into four interconnected divisions: the Crop Insurance Division (covering crop insurance product design, development, and advisory across yield, price, revenue, and margin insurance on individual, area, or index bases), Data Science for Agriculture (providing quantitative assessment, backcasting, and future performance simulation using production, market pricing, planted acreage, and insurance performance data), Software Tool Development (building and maintaining a suite of industry-leading web-based applications that translate statistical analysis into actionable decision-support visualizations including graphs, charts, maps, and tables), and Crop Insurance Agent Training (delivering agent education via crop insurance academies, workshops, refresher courses, weekly seminars, and an expanding library of online resources). The divisions are interdependent: data science insights inform crop insurance product design and agent training content, software tools operationalize the outputs of data science, and agent training ensures producers can use the resulting products and tools effectively.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Crop Insurance Product Design and Development Design and development of crop insurance products covering yield, price, revenue, or margin losses on individual, area, or index bases, for insurance providers, producer groups, and government programs.
• Agricultural Data Science and Quantitative Assessment Quantitative assessment using production, market pricing, planted acreage, and insurance performance data with data science techniques to produce backcasts and simulate and project future performance for agricultural risk management decisions.
• Web-Based Agricultural Decision Support Software Tools Web-based applications that link statistical analysis to graphs, charts, maps, and tables to support agricultural decision making, developed from concept through full production implementation with continuous improvement.
• Crop Insurance Agent Training Program Training for crop insurance agents delivered through a crop insurance academy, day-long workshops, half-day refresher courses, weekly continuous education seminars, and an expanding online resource library.
• Farm and Ranch Restructuring and Estate Planning Debt and asset restructuring plus estate planning services for farms, ranches, and related businesses, with reported 90%+ success rate versus 10% national average.
• USDA Risk Management Agency Program and Policy Design Government-facing consulting on crop insurance policy and framework design, fraud waste and abuse prevention, and national program design delivered under contract with the USDA Risk Management Agency.

Quantifiable outcome

• 90%+ success rate in farm and ranch restructuring operations (compared to 10% national average)
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core, minor and foundational.

• USDA Risk Management AgencycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2000Following the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000, Watts and Associates was one of only four organizations authorized to bid on RMA crop insurance contracts. W&A secured a Base Contract establishing the foundation of their Crop Insurance Division.
• Leachman Cattle of ColoradominorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2000Post-retirement collaboration where Tim Watts works with Leachman Cattle on his own herd, continuing his agricultural involvement after leaving active management of Watts and Associates in 2022.
• Montana State UniversityfoundationalStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 1999Initial partnership on an existing contract between Montana State University and the USDA Risk Management Agency for Fraud, Waste and Abuse work. This partnership led to the establishment of the Crop Insurance Division of Watts and Associates, Inc. in 1999.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Guy Carpenter: Guy Carpenter is a leading global reinsurance broker and advisory firm; it is comparable to W&A as a buyer of crop insurance and reinsurance analytics, though it operates across the full reinsurance value chain rather than focusing on US crop insurance policy design.
• Munich Re: Munich Re is one of the world's largest reinsurers with a dedicated agricultural reinsurance practice; it relies on the same type of crop insurance product design and rating expertise that W&A provides to RMA and primary insurers.
• Milliman: Milliman is a global actuarial and consulting firm with deep crop insurance and agricultural risk expertise; it competes with W&A for actuarial, ratemaking, and product-design engagements, but as part of a much broader insurance and risk practice.
• Aon: Aon is a global professional services firm with significant agricultural insurance and reinsurance brokerage capabilities, overlapping with W&A's crop insurance advisory work but at much greater scale and across many other lines of business.
• Bayer Climate Corporation (Climate FieldView): Climate Corporation (acquired by Bayer) is a major agricultural data science and digital farming platform; it overlaps with W&A's data science for agriculture and decision-support software offerings, though at vastly greater scale and with broader crop input adjacencies.
• Swiss Re: Swiss Re is a major global reinsurer with agricultural insurance capabilities; it represents both a potential client for W&A-style product design services and a competitor for reinsurance-supported crop insurance mandates.

Emerging players

• Indigo Ag: Indigo Ag is an ag-tech company that has built digital agronomy, carbon, and parametric crop insurance products; it competes with W&A in agricultural risk management but emphasizes grower-facing digital distribution rather than federal policy design.
• DTN: DTN provides weather, market, and agricultural data feeds that underpin many farm risk management decisions; it is comparable to W&A in that its data infrastructure informs crop insurance and ag risk analytics, though it is a data vendor rather than a policy design firm.
• Farmers Business Network: FBN is an ag-tech platform offering data, inputs, and financial services (including crop insurance) to farmers; it overlaps with W&A's risk management and decision support focus but distributes through a grower network rather than to RMA and reinsurers.

Direct peers

• AgriLogic Consulting, LLC: AgriLogic is a crop insurance consulting firm that develops and submits 508(h) products to USDA RMA, directly competing with Watts and Associates in the same federal crop insurance product design and rating niche.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Watts and Associates Inc