Olympia, Wash. — The state insurance commissioner’s office and a major crop insurance company have fixed a situation that threatened to delay thousands of crop insurance payments to wheat growers across Eastern Washington.

“Working together, we were able to quickly find a way to get claims handled,” said Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. “Otherwise, a lack of adjusters could have stalled claims, with the deadline for insuring next year’s crop looming.”

State Rep. Laura Grant brought the situation to the attention of the Office of the Insurance Commissioner. With thousands of crop claims pending, she said, it was important to have as many crop adjusters as possible on hand to settle claims this fall.

For Rural Community Insurance Services (RCIS), this meant bringing in some of their crop adjusters from other states.

The problem: Washington law doesn’t include a separate category for crop insurance. So it looked like those out-of-state workers would first have to pass Washington’s general licensing requirements for adjusters. With time ticking away to process claims and pay for next year’s insurance, that wasn’t practical.

But a fix was found. After some discussion and research into Washington law and business licensing records, the insurance commissioner’s office was able to establish that RCIS is organized in such a way that it effectively holds a company-wide adjuster license. In such cases, the adjusters employed directly by a company don’t need individual licenses.

“Fortunately, there was a way to bring in more adjusters from out of state and still comply with state law,” said Kreidler. “It just took some digging to find a way to make it happen.”