(Bloomberg) — Zurich Insurance Group AG agreed to buy a Wells Fargo & Co. crop-insurance business for as much as $1.05 billion as the Swiss company puts to work excess cash left over from a separate takeover bid that it abandoned this year.

The purchase or Rural Community Insurance Services, or RCIS, will give Zurich a 20% share of a highly regulated market guarding farmers against weather-related losses, Vontobel analyst Stefan Schuermann wrote in a note after the deal was announced Friday. It will provide about $1.6 billion in net earned premiums by 2017, adding 3.5% to Zurich's top line, he wrote.

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