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:

With this ticket, the Practice that is selected with the EP Unit Structure will now print on the Policy Declaration Page. All changes will be rolled out as base changes for all Crop Years.

There are four formats of the Policy Declaration Page. The format that prints is based on the crop:

A State column has been added to the Private Product Coverages (Reports > Private Product Reporting > Private Product Coverages) and Private Product Placeholder Line (Reports > Private Product Reporting > Private Product Placeholder Line) reports.

It was found that the printed Weighted Average Worksheet was receiving Telerik errors for the Set Out Year when it was printed. The following updates were made to correct these errors and are applicable to all Crop Years:

A 2019 ADM update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2019:

An ICE 2014 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following table has been updated for 2014:

An ICE 2015 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following table has been updated for 2015:

An ICE 2016 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following table has been updated for 2016:

An ICE 2017 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following table has been updated for 2017:

An ICE 2018 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following table has been updated for 2018:

An ICE 2019 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2019:

A 2018 ADM update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2018:

An ICE 2014 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2014:

An ICE 2014 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2014:

An ICE 2015 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2015:

An ICE 2015 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2015:

An ICE 2016 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2016:

An ICE 2016 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2016:

An ICE 2017 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2017:

An ICE 2017 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2017:

An ICE 2018 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2018:

An ICE 2018 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2018:

An ICE 2019 update was made by the RMA and has been implemented in the System. The following tables have been updated for 2019:

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.

MP: An AIP reported they were receiving P11-9602 Errors (Sub County Code must be valid; edit with Map ADM A00045) on their Margin Protection policies with an associated base policy. The Margin Protection P11 Field 26 was populating with the T-Map Area of the base coverage P11 record. RMA has provided confirmation that they are updating the M13 to not require the Map Area for Margin Protection as there are not any offers on the price table for Plans 16 and 17. The Transmission was updated to exclude the Sub County Code in Field 26 of the P11 if it is Plan Code 16 or 17 with an associated base coverage.

SCO: The current Supplemental Coverage Endorsement (SCO) procedures provide an insurance guarantee based on the gap between 86% of the expected area yield/revenue and the Coverage Level of the underlying policy. 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.

In the 7.015 release with TFS #89038, a new field for SCO Coverage Percentage was added to the user interface to account for this value and populated the values with the default of 100% for any existing 2019 coverages. However, this did not account for any coverages with SCO that had not yet rolled to 2019. With this ticket, the roll logic was updated to default the SCO Coverage Percentage values to 100% for any coverages with SCO elected. This is a change for the 2019 roll only.

MP: It was found that, for Margin Protection policies that have a companion base policy with LP applied, if Irrigated and Non-Irrigated acres were planted and applied to the base policy, the Margin Protection Irrigated units were not using the correct base rate. In the 2018+ RYs for Plans 16 and 17, the rate calculator was updated to get the correct Coverage Level (Irrigated vs Non-Irrigated) when Coverage by Practice (LP) is applied. Previously, it was always using the Non-Irrigated Coverage Level.

Late Plant: An MCT identified bug has been resolved within the scope of this ticket. The Late Plant detail line indicator was no longer displaying on child lines when Late Plant or Max Late Plant status applied. The indicator was only displaying if the late planted acreage was keyed on the parent line. This has been corrected for all Plan Codes that provide LP coverage.

Cherries & Oranges: It was found that the System was not rolling the share value from the prior year detail line into the ARH database for Plan Code 0047, which is available for Crop Codes "0057" (Cherries) and 0227 (Oranges).

This was corrected, and the System is now rolling the MPCI Premium Line share into the share field within the ARH database for Plan Code 0047 crops.

Cherries: In 2018, the "J" descriptor for ARH Cherries was implemented with TFS #77652, and with this ticket, the "J" descriptor will now roll.

When rolling Cherries, the "J" descriptor is valid for 2 years for the Processing Type (112 and 416) Cherries (crop code is "0057"); however, if the Type code is "111", the "J" descriptor is valid for only 1 year (so no changes to how the "J" descriptor is rolled).

NOTE: TFS #92459 and #92905 will add validation for the "J" descriptor within the ARH database the following year.

EP: For the 2018 RY for crops with an 11/30 or later Filing Date, RMA introduced new Enterprise Units by Practice procedures that allow growers to elect EP on a single irrigation practice while electing BU/OU on the other irrigation practice. As part of these new procedures, functionality was added to the coverage pages to allow users to indicate whether EP is elected on irrigated practices, non-irrigated practices, or both, with the default being both. At that time, a script was also run to populate the new field as "both" practices for any existing EP coverages for which an election had not been made.

Now for the 2019 RY, these procedures are applicable for all crops. Given this, any existing fall coverages in 2019 will need to default to "both" practices, if an election has not been made. With this ticket, a script was run to populate the new Selected Practice(s) for EP field on the coverage as "both" for any existing 2019 coverages with EP elected.

Add New Policy: An issue was found internally on the Add New MPCI Policy page. On the Add New MPCI Policy page, there is a read-only field under the Marketing Region field that previously read "Policy State". That field should have read "Processing Region". The field label has been corrected from "Policy State" to "Processing Region" with this ticket.

A Policy Form field was added to the Notice of Loss form. The data for this field will be pulled from the associated field on the Claims page. This change excludes Watts products.

ICE & Yield Stack: It was requested to give users the ability to delete detail lines on Increased Coverage Election and Yield Stack policies. Increased Coverage Election and Yield Stack pages were updated to give the user the ability to delete a detail line on a policy.

MP: An update was made to allow MPCI acreage reports from Plan Codes 16 and 17 for Margin Protection to import acres to their linked Crop Hail policies.

MPowerD: There was an issue on MPowerD policies if the user had a coverage that had a zero acreage report on the associated MPCI under the RP and MP plans. This was leaving the MPowerD policy in placeholder line status as the MPCI coverage was not recognizing a zero acreage report on the MP plan of insurance if a zero acreage report was reported on the RP plan of coverage for that crop/county.

This is a testing-only ticket to verify the changes implemented for the MPCI policy with TFS #89495. The user will now be able to complete the submittal of acres from the MPCI crop/county to the MPowerD policy in the situation where the grower carries both the RP and MP plans on the MPCI Crop/County but has no planted acres on that crop.

NOTE: If the associated MPCI Acreage Report has already been completed, you will need to re-save the MPCI Acreage Report for the 0 crop. This will then trigger the MP plan of insurance to add a zero detail line from the RP Plan of Insurance for the MPCI policy/crop. Once the signature maintenance is then updated, it will apply the signature dates to both the RP and MP plans of insurance for the MPCI crop, and the MPowerD will allow for the submittal of acres for all associated coverages.

Occasionally, when a user set up a linked Private Product policy, the placeholder lines were not matching the order of the associated MPCI policy coverages. An enhancement was made to the set up of linked Private Products; the placeholder lines on the Private Product policy will now match the order of the coverages as shown on the MPCI side.

NOTE: This does not affect existing policies. Only policies where a submit acres/mark complete is done will be re-ordered.

Several products were not displaying the Payment Due Date in the policy header information. The System was updated to display the Payment Due Date in the policy header for all product types.

The status that was showing on the policy main page was not being displayed on the claim header page. The System has been updated so that the status of the policy is now the same status that is shown on the claim header page.