A rigorous estimation model of crop yields which ensures accurate and actuarially sound insurance premiums is of utmost importance to maintain sustainable and viable risk management solutions for producers, insurers, and governments. A major challenge in estimating crop yield models arises from non-stationarity of the data generating process due to technological change and climate change. In this paper, we introduce a local adaptive parametric approach to deal with the non-stationarity of crop yields and to estimate the time-varying parameters of crop yield models. Results from an empirical application to major crops in the U.S. indicate that the proposed model precisely captures the evolution of crop yield risks: yield risks for corn and cotton are decreasing, but are increasing for winter wheat. In terms of forecasting performance, the adaptive local parametric model, in general, outperforms the linear spline model that is commonly used in the current rating methodology. A rating analysis suggests that the proposed model has the potential to obtain more accurate rates and that most current insurance premium rates are overestimated for corn and cotton, but are underestimated for winter wheat.