BULLETIN NO.: MGR-95-009

TO:       All Reinsured Companies
          CFSA Headquarters, Program Delivery and Field Operations
          All Risk Management Field Offices

FROM:     Kenneth D. Ackerman
          Acting Deputy Administrator

SUBJECT:  Relief for Catastrophic Coverage Production Reporting for the 1995 
          Crop Year


BACKGROUND:

The Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994 and program considerations 
require that Actual Production History (APH) yields must be established on 
all policies.  APH yields are needed not only for a claim to be processed, 
but also to determine; (1) the degree of exposure or liability of the crop 
insurance program to actual loss, (2) the level of imputed premium to be 
credited to fund potential indemnity payments, and (3) the insurance 
guarantee for each policyholder.  

If large numbers of APH determinations are not completed until late in the 
crop year and losses do occur, many farmers may not receive timely payments 
on claims.  The earlier the APH yield is processed, the better the quality of 
the service provided to producers.  Insurance providers should continue to 
encourage producers to complete production reporting as soon as practicable 
and to take advantage of the flexibility provided by the certification 
process.

ACTION:

Recognizing the difficult workload situations associated with implementation 
of the catastrophic crop insurance program, additional time to complete the 
work of obtaining and processing APH yields for catastrophic coverage 
policies is being provided as follows:

1.   Insurance providers may accept catastrophic coverage yield histories 
     until the earlier of the following dates, as appropriate:

     A.   the filing of any claim for indemnity under a CAT policy; or
 
     B.   May 31, for most perennial and fall-seeded crops ; or

     C.   July 15, for spring-planted crops .


Insurance providers are encouraged to arrange meetings with producers to 
complete this work at the same time as acreage reporting so that all needed 
information can be obtained in a single visit.


2.   Once the certified yield histories are received, Consolidated Farm 
     Service Agency (CFSA) county offices and reinsured companies shall 
     process the APH data and submit it to the Federal Crop Insurance 
     Corporation  as soon as possible to ensure that producers who experience 
     losses or require additional work on their yields will receive timely 
     service.  County Offices should record the data, but will not be able to 
     transmit until the transmission software is available.

We will continue to work with all insurance providers where particular 
workload situations exist to ensure that offices are able to provide service 
to their producers.