Release Notes 7.020.0

Beginning in the 2019 Reinsurance Year (RY), RMA is adding a Coverage Percentage election to the SCO endorsement. Growers will have the ability to choose a Coverage Percentage between 50 and 100 percent. The elected Coverage Percentage will be multiplied by the total guarantee to determine liability. This will effectively allow growers to elect to reduce the liability on the SCO endorsement and customize their coverage. The following updates have been made to the SCO Endorsement Application that prints with the MPCI Application and Policy Change Form for the 2019+ RYs:

Beginning in the 2019 Reinsurance Year (RY), RMA is adding a Coverage Percentage election to the SCO endorsement. Growers will have the ability to choose a Coverage Percentage between 50 and 100 percent. The elected Coverage Percentage will be multiplied by the total guarantee to determine liability. This will effectively allow growers to elect to reduce the liability on the SCO endorsement and customize their coverage. The following updates have been made to the Policy Declaration Page for all years (the System will control when an SCO Coverage Percentage can be selected):

Forage Underwriting / Acreage Report: A request was received to make the Forage Underwriting / Acreage Report easier to use. Several changes were made to accomplish this goal. The updates apply to all years.

It was found that the City, State, Zip was not printing on the MPCI Application and Perennial Combo Form when there were two address lines. The MPCI Application shares the SBI section code with the Perennial Combo Form. The MPCI Application and Perennial Combo Form have been updated in the following ways for all Crop Years:

With this ticket, the Policy Change form has been updated to print the Practice that is selected with the EP Unit Structure. The Policy Change form has been updated in the following ways for all Crop Years:

2019 Roll: TFS #58027 implemented a change where the Percent of Value rolled for PRF in the 2018 RY. This ticket applied that same logic from the 2018 RY change to Apiculture for the 2019 RY. A change was made to roll the Percent of Value for the insured index intervals.

APH: The reporting of production for ARPI and standalone-STAX/Margin Protection policies is required within the same Reinsurance Year (RY) in which the acres are reported and must be transmitted on the P26 record for the current year policy. However, the Production Reporting Dates for ARPI and standalone-STAX/Margin Protection are typically not until long after the policy has already been rolled to the next RY in the System.

The current work-flow process for users to report production for these policy types includes keying production through the Fast Edit PR on the policy in the year in which the acres are being reported. Then, once all ARPI/STAX/Margin Protection production has been keyed, since the policies have already been rolled to the next RY, a roll utility is run to roll the production keyed to the current year policy (through the Fast Edit PR) to the APH-like record (if one exists) on the policy in the next RY.

NOTE: This is referred to as an "APH-like record" because a true APH is not applicable to ARPI or standalone-STAX/Margin Protection. While the same APH page is used, the majority of the calculation and validation logic is not used. However, AIPs have requested an APH page for these policy types to allow them to track production history in the event the grower decides to change to an APH-based plan in a subsequent year.

To avoid the time lapse between keying of ARPI/STAX/MP production and the roll of the production to the APH in the next RY, a request was received for a real-time update of the APH-like record in the next RY immediately after the user keys production through the Fast Edit PR on the current year policy.

With this ticket, the ARPI/STAX/MP Fast Edit PR logic was updated to include pushing production to the APH-like record in the next RY (if one exists). In addition, logic was added to calculate the APH-like record in the next RY.

NOTE: Since standard APH procedures do not apply, the APH calculation is merely a simple average of what exists in the database; standard approved yield logic does not apply.

Enterprise Units: In 2018, RMA introduced a new procedure that allows Enterprise Units by Practice (EP) to be elected on one irrigation practice while BU/OU is elected on the other irrigation practice. As part of these changes, some adjustments were made to how the System determines whether BU or OU applies to the irrigation practice on which EP is not elected. A bug was reported with this logic where the System was applying OU to the irrigation practice on which EP was not elected. While the detail lines would have qualified for OU, the user had selected the Use BU checkbox on the detail lines, so BU should have applied.

Developer research confirmed the System logic to determine BU/OU unit structure on the non-EP practice was not taking the Use BU checkbox into account. The unit structure logic has been updated to account for the Use BU checkbox. If this checkbox is selected on the detail lines for the practice EP is not elected on, the System will apply BU to detail lines within that irrigation practice, even if OU would have otherwise applied.

Fast Edit AR & PR: This ticket cleaned up functionality on Fast Edit PR and Fast Edit AR. When a user begins the tabbing sequence and tabs through the fields, the entire input area of the field in the grid they tab into is highlighted so they can begin typing the applicable value; nothing needs to be deleted to accept the entry made. However, previously, if a user didn't use the tabbing sequence and just clicked on a field for entry, the entire input area of the field wasn't highlighted, so they had to first delete the default value in the field before their own keyed value fully replaced the default value (often 0.00). With this ticket, the entry fields on the 2 grids have been updated to behave the same whether the user selects them via the tabbing sequence or clicks within a field with their mouse.

Fast Edit AR: When adding a new unit within Fast Edit AR, it was determined that validations were no longer triggering even if a valid Procedure Number and/or Procedure Code was not applied (if/when applicable). A Procedure Number is not required, but if one is applied, it must be a number equal to or within the range of 001 and 999. Also, if a Procedure Number is applied, a Procedure Code is required. Validations were triggering at one time if the correct information was not keyed for these two fields. The System has been fixed, and the following validations will trigger again when entering a new unit from within Fast Edit AR if the correct information is not provided:

Fast Edit CLU: A Select All checkbox was added to the FSN/Tract banner to allow users to select all fields under a single FSN/Tract at once.

Margin Protection: Per the most recent Margin Protection white paper, PASS requires a zero acre/non-premium AR code ("X" or "Z") P11 record for the Margin Protection coverage if one exists for the base coverage. Existing functionality to auto-create Margin Protection detail lines when acres are keyed to the base coverage did not account for creating zero acres/non-premium AR code Margin Protection detail lines.

Logic has been added to the Process Zero AR functionality and Recreate Margin Protection detail lines functionality to account for creation of zero acres/non-premium AR Code ("X" and "Z") on Margin Protection coverages. During processing of zero AR on the base coverage, if the System applies "X" or "Z" non-premium AR codes to any zero acre base coverage detail lines, it will also create a Margin Protection detail line with zero acres and the same non-premium AR code of "X" or "Z". In addition, if the System creates a phantom line on the base coverage when no detail lines currently exist, this phantom line will also be created on the Margin Protection coverage.

UW/AR: For the 4 crops listed below that require an Underwriting Report, the signature dates for this form as well as the Acreage Reporting form are generally the same, especially for Forage Production when a "combo" form is used for both. Users were having to apply Signature Dates on the Underwriting Report page for the Underwriting Report and, generally, the same dates when they processed the Acreage Report. It was requested to only have to apply Signature Dates once for both reports at the same time. This applies to:

To avoid having to apply the same signature dates in the user interface for the Underwriting Report and Acreage Report for the above crops, a new Update AR Sign Dates checkbox was added to the Underwriting Report page. When selected, the same dates the user provided for the Underwriting Report Signature Dates will also be used to update the Acreage Report Signature Dates on all detail lines for the coverage.

NOTE: If multiple Acreage Reporting Dates exist for one of the above crops, it's recommended you apply the Acreage Report Sign Dates from the standard Signature Maintenance page or from within Fast Edit AR, which will allow dates to be applied by Planting Season. (For 2018, Alfalfa Seed was the only crop that had Fall/Spring AR Dates.)

The new Update AR Sign Dates checkbox will default as selected for Forage Production since that crop uses a combo UW/AR Reporting form and the dates should be the same. If they are not (because another form is used), users will need to deselect the box before saving the Underwriting Report page to avoid applying incorrect AR Sign Dates.

For Alfalfa Seed, Grass Seed, and Mint, the new checkbox will default as deselected since they each have a separate UW and AR Form, making it easier for the signature dates to be different. Users will need to select the checkbox before saving the Underwriting Report page to apply the provided dates to the AR.

When updating Acreage Report Signature Dates with the dates provided on the Underwriting Report page:

Even though these changes are being stood up for the 2019 RY processing season, the new code is not limited by RY.

UW: The following bugs related to the Underwriting Report page were identified and corrected:

MP: An AIP reported they had Margin Protection policies returning in error due to the BFR Subsidy not applying to the Margin Protection premium lines. The System was updated to apply the 10% BFR subsidy credit to Margin Protection Plans 16 and 17.