Enclosure Page 2 

FCIC Interpretation

Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Interpretation

Subject: Request dated December 12, 2023, submitted to the Risk Management Agency (RMA) for 

a Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) interpretation of Section 22(a) of the 2020 Whole-Farm 

Revenue Protection (WFRP) Pilot Policy. 

Reference:

The relevant policy provision from the 2020 WFRP Pilot Policy is: 

22. Your Duties in the Event of Damage or Loss.

(a) You must provide us with a notice of loss within 72 hours of your initial discovery that 

any commodity insured under this policy has been damaged by a cause of loss that 

could result in a loss of production or reduction in value or that your allowable 

revenue for the policy year could fall below the insured revenue: 

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(c) You must notify us and obtain our consent before you abandon, dispose of, or destroy 

any damaged or undamaged insured commodities, or sell a commodity for any reason 

other than its intended purpose or to someone other than a disinterested third party. 

First Requestor’s Interpretation

The first requestor interprets Section 22(a) of the 2020 WFRP Pilot Policy to mean that the Approved 

Insurance Provider (AIP) must pay a claim due to loss in market price when an insured timely notifies 

the AIP that a decline in market price and interprets this provision to require payment of such claim 

even if a separate Cause of Loss (COL), for which the insured did not provide timely notice (i.e., 

severe adverse weather), affected the crop and prevented its harvest.

The first requestor also interprets Section 22 to provide that when a crop suffers a loss caused by two 

independent insured COLs, the loss is covered when notice of one COL is timely and the AIP can 

accurately determine the amount and COL. It is the first requestor’s interpretation that if a potential 

loss of revenue is timely noticed, the fact that another covered COL was not timely noticed does not 

defeat coverage.

Second Requestor’s Interpretation

The second requestor interprets Section 22(a) of the 2020 WFRP Pilot Policy to require that a 

policyholder provide timely notice of all COLs and, in particular, Section 22(a)(2) requires timely 

notice of loss if the policyholder is unable to market the insured crop or has such a loss of production 

that the policyholder decides to not harvest the crop. The fact that the insured provided timely notice 

that the crop experienced a loss due to a decline in price does not excuse the failure to provide notice 

under Section (a)(2). Moreover, Section 22(d) provides that the failure to “comply with any of the 

notice requirements of this section,” meaning Section 22, will result in the loss for which notice was 

not provided to be deemed “due solely to uninsured causes.” Therefore, if a commodity that 

experiences a decline in price and a weather-related loss that results in the crop being unmarketable or 

a significant loss of production, the failure to provide timely notice of weather damage will result in 

the loss being attributed to uninsured causes. 
Enclosure Page 3 

FCIC Interpretation

Moreover, Section 22(a) cannot be interpreted in a vacuum and compliance with section 22(a) does 

not excuse a policyholder’s failure to comply with other provisions of Section 22, including Section 

22(c), which applies to the abandonment or other disposal of the insured crop and the policyholder’s 

duty to obtain the company’s consent before abandoning a crop. 

Federal Crop Insurance Corporation Interpretation

FCIC disagrees with the first requestor’s interpretation of Section 22(a) of the 2020 WFRP Pilot 

Policy to mean that an AIP must pay a claim based on the timeliness of a notice of loss. FCIC 

interprets Section 22(a) to mean the insured has a responsibility to provide a notice of loss to the AIP 

within 72 hours of when they first noticed damage that could result in a loss of production or a 

reduced value to any insured commodity on their farm operation. 

FCIC agrees with the second requestor’s interpretation that Section 22(a) requires an insured to 

provide timely notice of all COLs and the fact that a timely notice of loss was provided for one COL, 

does not negate the requirement to provide timely notices for all COLs. Furthermore, FCIC agrees

with second requestor’s interpretation of Section 22(c) that an insured must notify the AIP and obtain 

consent before abandoning or destroying an insured commodity. 

In accordance with section 33(a)(1) of the WFRP Pilot Policy, this FCIC interpretation is binding in 

any mediation or arbitration. In accordance with section 33(a)(1) of the WFRP Pilot Policy, any 

appeal of this interpretation must be in accordance with 7 C.F.R. part 11. 

Date of Issue: February 28, 2024