Rainfall-related hazards—deficit rain and excessive rain—inevitably stress crop production,and weather index insurance is one possible financial tool to mitigate such agro-metrological losses.In this study,we investigated where two rainfall-related weather indices—anomaly-based index (AI) and humidity-based index(HI)—could be best used for three main crops (rice,wheat,and maize) in China\'s main agricultural zones.A county is defined as an “insurable county” if the correlation between a weather index and yield loss was significant.Among maize-cropping counties,both weather indices identified more insurable counties for deficit rain than for excessive rain (AI:172 vs 63;HI:182 vs 68);moreover,AI identified lower basis risk for deficit rain in most agricultural zones while HI for excessive rain.For rice,the number of AI-insurable counties was higher than the number of HI-in-surable counties for deficit rain (274 vs 164),but lower for excessive rain (199 vs 272);basis risks calculated by two weather indices showed obvious difference only in Zone I.Finally,more wheat-insurable counties (AI:196 vs 71;HI:73 vs 59) and smaller basis risk indicate that both weather indices performed better for excessive rain in wheat-planting counties.In addition,most insurable counties showed independent yield loss,but did not necessarily result in effective risk pooling.This study is a primary evaluation of rainfall-related weather indices for the three main crops in China,which will be significantly helpful to the agricultural insurance market and governments\' policy making.