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France’s agricultural sector is exposed to many weather risks, which will increase because of climate change. Managing these risks is an essential part of farmers’ activities. Among the instruments at their disposal, crop insurance enables them to transfer part of these risks to an insurer. A contract is available in France since 2005 to cover economic losses caused by more than fifteen different weather hazards. However, despite important governmental subsidies, this insurance remains poorly subscribed with only 30% of the French agricultural area covered. The objective of this article is to display, through a review of the literature and a comparison of the French regime with those of Spain and Italy, factors that may explain this low rate of diffusion. We thus propose a classification of these lock-ins between contract-related characteristics, farm and operator profiles and competition with other risk management instruments and underline the points of divergence of the French model with those implemented abroad.