Background: The small brown planthopper (SBPH) is an important pest of cereal crops and acts as a transmission vector for multiple RNA viruses. Rapid diagnosis of virus in the vector is crucial for efficient forecast and control of viral disease. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is a rapid, sensitive and reliable method for virus detection. The traditional RT-PCR contains a RNA isolation step and is widely used for virus detection in insect. However, using the traditional RT-PCR for detecting RNA virus in individual SBPHs becomes challenging because of the expensive reagents and laborious procedure associated with RNA isolation when processing a large number of samples. Results: We established a simplified RT-PCR method without RNA isolation for RNA virus detection in a single SBPH. This method is achieved by grinding a single SBPH in sterile water and using the crude extract directly as the template for RT-PCR. The crude extract containing the virus RNA can be prepared in approximately two minutes. Rice stripe virus (RSV), rice black streaked dwarf virus (RBSDV) and Himetobi P virus (HiPV) were successfully detected using this simplified method. The detection results were validated by sequencing and dot immunobinding assay, indicating that this simplified method is reliable for detecting different viruses in insects. The evaluation of the sensitivity of this method showed that both RSV and HiPV can be detected when the cDNA from the crude extract was diluted up to 103 fold. Compared to the traditional RT-PCR with RNA isolation, the simplified RT-PCR method greatly reduces the sample processing time, decreases the detection cost, and improves the efficiency by avoiding RNA isolation. Conclusions: A simplified RT-PCR method is developed for rapid detection of RNA virus in a single SBPH without the laborious RNA isolation step. It offers a convenient alternative to the traditional RT-PCR method.