FAQs

Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC), and Associate in Risk Management (ARM) are all excellent educational programs for risk and insurance professionals. The AFIS program is not intended to compete with or be a substitute for these or other insurance industry designations. The AFIS curriculum is less rigorous and less time consuming than the CPCU, CIC, or ARM program. The CPCU program requires passing exams for 8, and the ARM 3, courses that cover the equivalent of a college semester's material in each (as opposed to the 100 or fewer page texts for the AFIS courses). The CIC program requires attending five 2½-day seminars, each of which is followed by a 2-hour final exam. While the AFIS program is not as rigorous as these other programs, its specialized focus on the complex insurance needs of the agriculture and farm industry make it a worthwhile investment for people who hold one or more of these designations as well as for people who do not. 

We will e-mail you several months before your certification expires to remind you of the need to renew your certification by taking additional AFIS courses or attending approved conferences or seminars. It is your responsibility to keep your e-mail address updated in the AFIS Learning Center to ensure you receive these e-mails.

IRMI has affiliated with WebCE.com, LLC, a nationwide supplier of state-of-the-art, self-paced CE courses to host the AFIS Learning Center and provide you with customer support. We chose WebCE because the firm has a long history of success in the CE business, has developed a premier online delivery system, and upholds the same standards of quality as IRMI.

WebCE is the official insurance CE provider for your courses, and this will be reflected on your certificate of completion. WebCE ships all course materials, validates completed tests, issues certificates, does the billing, and provides customer support.

Should you have specific questions about or problems with your service, contact WebCE directly:

Contact: WebCE
Phone: (877) 488–9313
Fax: (214) 570–0213
Address: P.O. Box 850058, Richardson, Texas 75085–0058

For more details regarding WebCE and how your AFIS account will be serviced, see the AFIS Learning Center FAQs.

If you fail to meet the continuing education requirement, you lose the AFIS certification and the right to use it in connection with your name. Once you lose the certification in this manner, you must complete the entire curriculum again to regain it.

We will e-mail you at the e-mail address on record in the Learning Center in the event you lose your certification because you failed to meet the experience requirement. However, it is your responsibility to keep up with your CE status, and failure to receive the e-mail does not make it permissible to use the certification after it expires. In other words, your license to use the AFIS trademark expires 12 months after you earn the right to use the certification unless you renew it by meeting the CE requirement during that time. Thereafter, you must complete the continuing education requirement every 12 months.

IRMI also reserves the right to revoke the certification for anyone who:

1. Is convicted of a felony

2. Is convicted of any state or federal crime related to insurance

3. Has an insurance license revoked due to violation of a state insurance code

4. Displays a pattern of unethical, illegal, or immoral behavior that reflects negatively on the AFIS certification

In the event IRMI revokes your certification, IRMI will e-mail notification and send a registered letter to the e-mail address and postal address on record in the Learning Center. Your license to use the certification expires 3 business days after the registered letter is mailed, whether or not you receive the letter. (It is your responsibility to maintain current contact information in the AFIS Learning Center.)

The AFIS certification is a trademark of IRMI and is protected under the law. Anyone who uses this trademark without permission may be subject to severe financial penalty. Please contact IRMI to report any suspected violations in the use of this trademark.

Yes. The AFIS program focuses on the application of coverage as written in the United States. However, it could be quite helpful to a non-US resident if your firm or your clients have exposures in the United States. Unfortunately, our system cannot process non-US addresses from the AFIS Learning Center online, so please call WebCE at (877) 488–9313 or (214) 575–5000 between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday–Friday, central time, or contact WebCE on the Web to place your order. Courses and exams will be available to you online.

Generally, yes. Sponsors of seminars and conferences must request approval from IRMI for a program to qualify for the AFIS continuing education requirement. To qualify, a program's content must be substantially directed to risk, insurance, surety, financial, or legal topics relevant to agribusiness and farm risks. See a list of approved programs or obtain information on how a sponsor of a program can become certified.

If you attend a seminar or conference that has not been preapproved, you may still get credit. Submit information about the seminar or conference to [email protected] and request that it be reviewed for credit.

Depending on your current level of knowledge in the subject matter, an AFIS online course will typically take 6 to 10 hours to complete. The average length of an AFIS course is 80–100 printed pages. The text includes a few practice questions following each chapter, which you may answer at your option. After reading the course, you take the final exam, which is composed of multiple-choice questions. The number of questions presented is dependent on your state's CE requirements if you choose to receive insurance CE credit and will be between 25 and 50 multiple choice questions. If you don't request CE credit, the exam will be 50 questions. If you do not pass the final exam the first time, you may study the material again and retake the exam.

If you take the courses at an Emmett J Vaughan Agribusiness Conference, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 consist of 1 day of classes each and an exam for each completed part administered online at your convenience.

As a holder of the AFIS certification, you are granted a license to display it in connection with your name. The most common format is to place a comma after your name, followed by the certification abbreviation (e.g., John Doe, AFIS). Alternatively, you may spell out the certification name (Agribusiness and Farm Insurance Specialist) in connection with your name; the most common approach for this is on websites, letterhead, or brochures. You may display it following your name on your business cards, marketing literature, or letterhead.

Lastly, the directory of insurance agents and brokers holding the AFIS certification provides a way for agribusinesses and farms to verify the credentials of insurance professionals with whom they are or are considering doing business. As part of the registration process, you can indicate whether you wish to be included on this list, and you may opt out at any time. To protect your privacy, the list will display only your name, city/state, phone number, and company affiliation.

If you take the courses online, at the end of the course, you can take the exam. If you are taking the courses at a Conference, at the conclusion of the Conference, you will receive a log-in voucher code. You must take the exam within 30 days of completing the Conference. The final exam for each course contains questions randomly selected from a test bank. You may use both your textbook and forms book during the exam. Other things you need to know about the exam include the following.

1. You can start and stop the exam and then log back in at a later time to resume where you left off. However, 2 hours is the maximum time that will be allowed to take the exam.
2. Exam results are immediate.
3. If an employer wants to monitor the exam process, he/she can require employees to take the exam at work under monitored supervision.

All course materials are copyrighted by IRMI, WebCE, or other WebCE business affiliates (the copyright holder is printed or displayed with each course). Purchase of a course includes a license for one person to use the course materials. This person may view the course online, save it on a single computer for his or her personal viewing, or print a copy for his or her personal use.

Absent specific written permission from the applicable copyright holder, it is not permissible to distribute files containing course materials or printed versions of course materials to individuals who have not purchased the courses. For example, you should never e-mail a PDF file of a course to someone else. It is also not permissible to make the course materials available to others over a computer network, Intranet, Internet, or any other storage, transmittal, or retrieval system.

Please follow these guidelines and contact IRMI if your business needs require some other form of use. Violation of this license could subject you or your employer to substantial statutory remedies under federal law (e.g., $10,000 per violation) and possible liability for actual damages and punitive damages.

IRMI is proud to bring AFIS to you using WebCE's state-of-the-art Internet delivery system. WebCE is the premier provider of Internet-based CE courses for insurance agents, brokers, and others. More than 850,000 insurance CE courses are completed on WebCE's system each year. The courses are self-paced, allowing you to take breaks and go back to the point where you left off in the course when you are ready to continue.

Any continuing education credit earned by taking AFIS courses or attending a seminar, webinar, or conference may be used to meet the renewal requirement for the 12-month period in which the credit is earned. We are sorry, but we cannot roll CE credit into a future period.

The objectives of the AFIS program are to (1) ensure that certification holders understand the fundamental insurance needs of agribusiness and farm risks, (2) demonstrate certification holders' commitment to maintaining specialized knowledge of the industry, and (3) provide certification holders with the means to stay abreast of agribusiness and farm risk and insurance developments and trends. The core curriculum satisfies only the first of these three objectives, and the ongoing continuing education requirement is necessary for the program to achieve the other two.

We do not intend for this requirement to be onerous. You may satisfy it through just one additional online course or attending an approved seminar, webinar, or conference.

Completing an AFIS course counts toward the CPCU CPD program, which allows the same number of points for CPD that have been awarded for CE credits in your state. Simply record the completed AFIS courses on the CPD qualifier application to receive credit in that program. 

The online courses have been filed for approval for insurance CE credit in all states. The Conference courses have been filed for approval in most states. The number of hours approved varies by state. The amount of credit provided ranges between 6 and 14 hours, depending on the course and state. 

You must correctly answer 70 percent of the multiple-choice questions on the final exam to successfully complete an AFIS course. Keep in mind that you can retake the exam if you fail to pass it. There is no limit to the number of times you may take the exam.

We do not waive any of the AFIS core courses for those who hold degrees or other certifications for two reasons. First, the AFIS program is uniquely focused on the needs of agriculture and farm risks. Other more general programs do not include this unique industry focus, and we feel that allowing them to offset the AFIS courses could detract from the credibility of the AFIS program. Second, we designed the AFIS program in a manner to allow easy and efficient administration of the program. By keeping our overhead costs quite low, we can offer the courses at very competitive prices. Implementing a system for cross crediting other educational programs and verifying that applicants indeed hold those certifications would increase our expenses and require us to charge more for the program.

While we do not waive the AFIS core courses, we do plan to allow credit for certain other educational programs in meeting the ongoing continuing education requirement. 

Continuous learning is important for all business professionals, particularly those who work in a field that changes rapidly. The AFIS curriculum will be a great refresher course on insurance and risk management fundamentals for agribusiness and farm operations. Completing the core courses will help you maintain confidence that your knowledge is up-to-date. The ongoing continuing education program will then help you stay on top of the trends and developments affecting your important accounts. And if you are an agent or broker in need of state insurance CE credit, obtaining the AFIS certification allows you to leverage your CE effort into a meaningful risk and insurance certification as well. 

Agribusiness and farm operations can be complicated. Obtaining the AFIS certification will help you focus on the key issues to address in your risk management and insurance program. The ongoing continuing education program will hone your knowledge and equip you to be a far better steward of your firm's insurance and risk management program. You'll have the confidence and knowledge to make the right risk management and insurance purchasing decisions, to avoid onerous risk and insurance provisions in your contracts, to ensure that your agent or broker is delivering optimum service, and to negotiate the best deals for your company. 

When you obtain the AFIS certification, you make a statement to your clients that you are committed to serving them and have the knowledge to do it well. Your enhanced credibility along with the confidence you'll gain as a result of your new knowledge will improve your ability to sell insurance to clients and negotiate intelligently on their behalf with underwriters or adjusters. You may also elect to have your name, firm, and phone number included in the directory of AFIS construction insurance agents and brokers. 

The AFIS continuing education (CE) program curriculum is intended to be on a basic-to-intermediate level, but it does cover complex insurance topics and assumes you have basic knowledge of insurance terminology and fundamentals. Therefore, the curriculum will be more challenging to someone who has no insurance background than it will be for someone who does.