Release Notes 9.045.0

The Potential Loss Estimator and Annual Production Report / Potential Loss Estimator Worksheet has been updated in the following ways:

2021 Special Provisions for Forage Seeding, Orange Trees, and Potatoes were updated and made available from the RMA on Sept 9.

Beginning in the 2021+ RYs, the RMA has introduced a new Program called Quality Loss Exclusion Option (QL) that will allow an insured to replace actual yields based on post-quality production amounts in their APH database(s) with actual yields based on pre-quality production amounts. This replacement only applies when a notice of loss was timely filed, regardless of whether an indemnity payment occurred, and when the crop had quality-adjusted production.

The Quality Loss Exclusion Option (QL) eligible crops are identified in the actuarial documents. When QL is elected, insureds may replace an actual yield based on total/net production adjusted for quality reductions (post-quality adjustment production) with an actual yield based on total production prior to any quality adjustment reductions (pre-quality adjustment/gross production). This is referred to as QL replacement.

The Quality Loss Exclusion Option (QL) code, if allowed per ADMs for the State/County/Crop, must be elected on the coverage by the applicable SCD. This is a continuous option until cancelled in writing by the cancellation date or transferred to a different AIP. Once cancelled, Actual Yield replacement of the quality adjusted production no longer applies; yield substitution, CUPS, and Yield Floors may apply if elected and are applicable.

This ticket added two new columns when the QL option is elected on the coverage. BFR and VFR were added to the Legend and print after the Insured's name in parentheses, when applicable. When the coverage has elected the QL option, the System prints 2 units to a page for all of the units for the coverage. The basic unit format will include the "Pre-Quality Total Prod." and "Pre-Quality Actual Yield." QLO columns and print the data that has been entered.

MCT was reviewing forms to prepare for the FL APH Citrus Fruit updates coming and noticed that if a FL APH Citrus Fruit policy had elected the HIP option, the HIP lines were printing on the Production Report / Acreage Report page(s) and PAW page(s) in the Perennial Combo Form and the standalone Producer's Pre-Acceptance Worksheet (PAW). The Production Report / Acreage Report page(s) and PAW page(s) in the Perennial Combo Form and the standalone PAW have been updated to not print HIP child lines.

MCT also found that a total line was printing under each PAW line on the FL Fruit and Tree PAW formats instead of a total line for all PAW lines for the unit. This issue has been resolved.

Some Special Provisions for 2021 were updated and made available from the RMA on Aug 13. The following were downloaded and implemented in the System for the 10/31 CCD:

Some Special Provisions for 2021 were updated and made available from the RMA on Aug 13. The following were downloaded and implemented in the System for the 8/31 CCD:

Some Special Provisions for 2021 were updated and made available from the RMA on Aug 13. The following were downloaded and implemented in the System for the 9/30 CCD:

The Actual Revenue History (ARH) form has been updated with base form standards and to address AIP requests for the form.

The Perennial Combo form has been updated in the following ways:

The Producer's Pre-Acceptance Worksheet (PAW) for CA Citrus Trees has been updated for all years (the System determines when a CA Citrus Tree coverage can be created) in the following ways:

An enhancement request was received to add a new Livestock Policy Management Dashboard to the System to allow users to view, sort, and filter all of their Livestock policies. This will also provide users with enhanced navigation through their Livestock policies to view, add, and print forms for the respective policies.

With this ticket, a new Policy Management Dashboard menu item was added to the Livestock menu of the main navigation bar of the System (Livestock > Policy Management Dashboard). This new menu item will only be available to users who have access to the Livestock menu. Once selected, the new Policy Management Dashboard page opens. The top section of the page allows users to filter the listings. The default Reinsurance Year will be the current RY based upon the System date. The default Plan selected will be DRP. Future tickets will be adding LRP and LGM plans to the dashboard. The Coverage Status, Detail Line Status, and Agent selections will default to show all applicable results, but the user will be able to change the selections to fit their needs. Users will also be able to Export the results displaying within the grid to an Excel document. The Excel document will display the same columns that exist on the dashboard.

The bottom half of the page will display the results of the selected filters from the top section. Standard filtering options will apply for each column heading. Users will be able to click on the hyperlinks or quick links to open the applicable pages. Hover-over popups have been added to indicate if a claim has been paid on the premium line or if the premium line has been approved by the RMA. An information icon popup has been added to allow users to quickly see the details of the premium line without having to navigate to the applicable premium line.

NOTE: TFS #119528 will add LRP (Plan 81) to the Livestock Policy Management Dashboard for improved workflow in Livestock processing, and TFS #119529 will add LGM (Plan 82) to the Livestock Policy Management Dashboard for improved workflow in Livestock processing.

The Wall Map layout was updated to make the header and footer space larger for easier reading. This ticket updated the portrait orientation print only; landscape will be handled in a separate ticket.

APH: A new APH Yield Type of "AP" was added for the 2021+ RYs. This Yield Type will be used when combining APH databases when there's more than one P/T/TMA that requires a separate approved APH Yield/APH Database. "AP" is a yield that is a combination of an actual yield and an assigned yield when APH databases are combined. This yield descriptor will be available for use for the 2021+ RYs. This yield is eligible for yield substitution and will count as a year of records for determining percent of T-yield or Yield Floor, if applicable. The AP Yield Type is to be treated the same as an "A" Yield Type.

APH: Production record types have been required since 2018. Validation warnings display at the save of an APH if there is no production record type entered in a Crop Year that has acres greater than 0. The Helpdesk received a report of the warning message displaying on the incorrect APH. For example, an agency user working on an APH was receiving the warning on the APH they were updating but it was actually being triggered on a different APH on the coverage. This led to confusion on the part of the user. Warning messages were being triggered but all data in the UI looked to be complete. The error displaying on the incorrect APH has been resolved.

Beginning in the 2021+ RYs, RMA is implementing a program for CA Citrus Trees. CA Citrus Trees for Tangelo Trees (0192), Orange Trees (0207), Grapefruit Trees (0208), Lemon Trees (0209), and Mandarin/Tangerine Trees (0308) will all be based under the Tree Based Dollar Amount of Insurance Plan (Plan 40). The program will be modeled after the other Tree Based Dollar crop programs like Florida Fruit Trees. With this ticket, the following coverage and UI updates for this program have been implemented:

HIP: It was reported that users were receiving errors on Cotton policies when SE, SCO, HIP, and HIP + SE were elected on the coverage but SE was not elected on the SCO coverage. In this scenario, the System was incorrectly using the SCO coverage level to determine the coverage range for the HIP + SE premium line. However, since SE was not elected on SCO, the System should have determined the coverage range using the base coverage. Premium line logic for HIP + SE has been updated to use the base coverage level, rather than the SCO coverage, to determine the coverage range for the HIP + SE premium line when SE is not elected on SCO.

NOTE: With TFS #121027, also in the 9.045 release, the transmission was updated related to this change.

Nursery & HIP: The 2021 HIP handbook references a premium reduction on a Nursery FG&C policy due to the grower obtaining an NVS policy prior to the end of insurance under the Nursery FG&C policy. Functionality was implemented for this under TFS #115019 by including a new Policy Reduced Premium Date field on Nursery FG&C coverages. When a date is keyed in this field, the System uses this date combined with the Commencement Month on the premium line to determine the proration factor. While the System was applying the standard proration factor based on the commencement month to the HIP detail line, if a Policy Reduced Premium Date was entered, the System was only reducing the parent line and not the HIP child line. With this ticket, if the Policy Reduced Premium Date has been applied on a Nursery FG&C coverage, in addition to the premium being reduced on the parent premium line, the System will now also apply that reduction to the HIP child line.

Quality Loss Option: While testing TFS #119398 in 9.040 (which added the new Qualifies for QL functionality), an issue was found with when the QL option is not applied to the coverage, the coverage has a CY within an APH database that had YA applied to it as there's a Qualifies for QL indicator, Pre Quality Production and Pre Quality Yield values exist, and there's a Yield Type Code of "A".

When the QL option was added to the Coverage, the System did not remove the YA option and replace it with the Quality Loss indicator as it should have. When the QL option exists for a coverage, it should apply to all CYs of an APH DB reflecting a Qualifies for QL flag unless:

If the YA indicator is set for a CY(s) that reflects the Qualifies for QL flag, it will be removed and replaced by the Quality Loss indicator.

A few other adjustments were determined to be needed as well. These include the following:

IMPORTANT NOTE: It's possible that a Pre-Quality Production amount could exist that is greater than the Post-Quality Production amount but not enough to make a difference in the Annual Yield. The System will continue to apply QL to these years, and it will be up to the Agent/AIP to adjust the database if/when necessary to do so.

Quotes: In TFS #117391, the multi-select Crop Options field was updated on the MPCI Coverage and MPCI Detail Line pages to a differently formatted multi select. During testing of this ticket, it was found that the Add New Quote page was not updated with this change. With this ticket, the Add New Quote page was updated with the new multi select options format.

RMA announced a program for CA Citrus Trees. CA Citrus Trees for Tangelo Trees (0192), Orange Trees (0207), Grapefruit Trees (0208), Lemon Trees (0209), and Mandarin/Tangerine Trees (0308) will all be based under the Tree Based Dollar Amount of Insurance Plan (Plan 40). The program will be modeled after the other Tree Based Dollar crop programs like Florida Fruit Trees. Existing Plan 40 functionality applies unless otherwise called out below. With this ticket, functionality was updated for the Pre Acceptance Worksheet (PAW) for the new CA Citrus Tree Program. Functionality was also added for the existing Plan 40 suspension logic for the 2021+ RYs for the new CA Citrus Tree Program.

RMA announced a program for CA Citrus Trees. CA Citrus Trees for Tangelo Trees (0192), Orange Trees (0207), Grapefruit Trees (0208), Lemon Trees (0209), and Mandarin/Tangerine Trees (0308) will all be based under the Tree Based Dollar Amount of Insurance Plan (Plan 40). The program will be modeled after the other Tree Based Dollar crop programs like Florida Fruit Trees. This ticket is a testing only ticket. Although the M13 calculations have not been updated to reflect ALL of the CA Citrus Tree crops as of this date, it does appear that the System is rating Plan 40 trees correctly, and the results are matching RMA's cost estimator. No rating changes are needed at this time.

RMA is implementing a new Florida Citrus Actual Production History (APH) policy beginning in the 2022 Crop Year (2021 RY). The new APH program will be very similar to the CA Citrus Fruit APH program. The following commodities will be insurable under the new Florida Citrus APH plan: Oranges (0227), Grapefruit (0201), Tangelos (0203), Mandarins/Tangerines (0309), Tangors (1302), and Lemons (0202). With this ticket, the Coverage changes needed for the new Florida Citrus APH policy have been implemented in the System. The System will now allow users to select different coverage levels for each insured crop (Citrus Fruit group) or by Type. The System will also allow different Price Election %s to be selected by Type. NOTE: If CAT coverage is elected, the CAT level of coverage and price election will be applicable to all insured acreage of the insured crop (Citrus Fruit group) in the county.

To allow the different coverage levels and/or Price Election %s to be applied, the existing warning message upon save of the Add New Policy, Add New Coverage, and Maintain Coverage pages has been removed. Additionally, the corresponding mark complete suspension logic has been removed. The System was also updated to account for the new Fruit Groups that have been added to the ADMs for Plan Code 90 in Florida. The scope of this ticket includes the calculation of the admin fees due. A separate admin fee is due for each insured crop (Citrus Fruit group). NOTE: At this time, the Fruit Groups have not yet been updated in RMA's files. TFS #121370 has been set up as a testing-only ticket to account for the Fruit Group display and the testing of the admin fees.

RMA is implementing a new Florida Citrus Actual Production History (APH) policy beginning in the 2022 Crop Year (2021 RY). The new APH program will be very similar to the CA Citrus Fruit APH program. The following commodities will be insurable under the new Florida Citrus APH plan: Oranges (0227), Grapefruit (0201), Tangelos (0203), Mandarins/Tangerines (0309), Tangors (1302), and Lemons (0202). With this ticket, the Detail Line and PAW changes needed for the new Florida Citrus APH policy have been implemented in the System. The FL Citrus Fruit APH policy Detail Line and PAW procedures will mirror the functionality currently in place for CA Citrus Fruit Plan 90. Additional work will be needed for Tangors (1302). Tangors are a crop unique to Florida, so they will need to be added to the Perennial Plan Code 90 Crop List to allow new detail lines and PAWs to be created.

RMA is implementing a new Florida Citrus Actual Production History (APH) policy beginning in the 2022 Crop Year (2021 RY). The new APH program will be very similar to the CA Citrus Fruit APH program. The following commodities will be insurable under the new Florida Citrus APH plan: Oranges (0227), Grapefruit (0201), Tangelos (0203), Mandarins/Tangerines (0309), Tangors (1302), and Lemons (0202). With this ticket, the rating functionality required for the Plan 90 Florida Citrus Fruit program has been implemented in the System.