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This paper chronicles 15 years of experimentation with index insurance as a technology of weather risk governance, particularly as applied to vulnerable agricultural populations in sub-Saharan Africa. Index insurance – in which payouts are determined by environmental variables rather than direct loss inspection – has become a preeminent method with which development actors propose to manage climate vulnerability, despite problems of low demand and inaccurate loss indemnification. These challenges have prompted expert revisioning of the appropriate agents, risks and pools for index-based cover. Contrary to neoliberal individualization, indices have recently been used to constitute broader scales for welfare and humanitarian interventions. Yet, difficulties at even the largest-scaled pool suggest the impossibility of democratizing risk without transforming the terms on which the global adversely selected are …