⑴ Background——In 2008, China implemented the reform of the collective forest rights system, and forest insurance became a supporting system for the reform of the collective forest rights system. By 2020, policy-based forest insurance has covered 30 provinces（municipalities and autonomous regions）and four major forest industry enterprises in China. At present, the academic circles mainly focuses on the basic nature of forest insurance, financial subsidies and their efficiency, the causes of market failure, the determination of forest insurance premium rate, the factors affecting farmers’ forest insurance behaviors and willingness to pay forest insurance, as well as the measurement methods and applications of forest insurance willingness to pay forest insurance. However, there is a lack of in-depth analysis on the characteristics of forestry production, the characteristics of forest resources assets and the behavioral heterogeneity of insurance entities. ⑵ Methods——This paper used the literature research method to collect the representative literature related to forest insurance from 1984 to 2023, and made a qualitative analysis of them. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify the causes of forest insurance market failure and the necessity of financial subsidies, and to explore the gap between the determination of forest insurance cost and the estimation of farmers’ willingness to pay, in order to enhance forest insurance services and provide theoretical support for the deepening of the reform of collective forest rights system. ⑶ Results——First, in terms of forest insurance market failure, the existing research believes that the main reasons are the information asymmetry of the insurance market, the weak insurability of forest management risk and the double externality of forest insurance. Second, in terms of the nature of forest insurance and the effect of financial subsidies, the existing research believes that forest insurance belongs to the category of agricultural insurance, and financial subsidies have an incentive effect on the willingness to participate in forest insurance. Third, in terms of forest risk zoning and insurance premiumrate, the existing research mainly takes provincial administrative regions as the unit of risk zoning. In the determination of insurance premiumrates, it mainly studies the comprehensive insurance and fire insurance, and does not distinguish the main forest tree species, forest age class structure in the region. Fourth, in terms of the willingness to pay forest insurance and its influencing factors. The existing research has not paid enough attention to the heterogeneity of forest management subjects, and has not studied the factors of different age and species of forest. In fact, farmers and forestry management companies have different payment intentions and policy preferences for forest insurance. Fifth, in terms of the value assessment and measurement methods of forest insurance. The existing research mainly use the contingent valuation method, which makes the reliability of the relevant research conclusions have certain limitations. In addition, there is a lack of research on weather-derived forest insurance products and weather-index forest insurance. ⑷ Conclusions and Discussions——The existing research is insufficient to study the characteristics of forestry production and forest resource assets, and lack of in-depth research on the behavioral heterogeneity of different insurance entities. In addition to the need to zone forest risks at the provincial level, it is also necessary to zone forest risks at the county level and consider the impact of regional forest species composition and forest age structure on forest disaster losses. At the same time, in terms of farmers’ willingness to pay for forest insurance, we should pay attention to the limitations of research methods. Finally, forest insurance products based on meteorological disaster and meteorological index need to be further studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]