Crop Insurance (C) Working Group
Crop Insurance (C) Working Group Page
Joint Executive (EX) / Plenary Committee Summary Report
Fall 2009 Meeting Summaries Index

The Crop Insurance (C) Working Group met Sept. 21, 2009. During this meeting, the Working Group:

• Heard an updated report from NAIC staff on states’ efforts to avoid federal preemption of crop adjuster licensing. The U.S. Congress, through the federal Risk Management Agency (RMA), could preempt the states’ licensing authority in this area, on a state-by-state basis, beginning as early as July 1, 2011. The NAIC previously surveyed all of the states to assess whether they could allow a third party to test crop adjusters to obtain a crop insurance license. These results appear to indicate that as many as 14 states could be preempted. NAIC staff and the Working Group continue to work with the states to assist those that have questions or problems. All 14 states plan to implement changes so that federal preemption will not occur. NAIC staff will look into investigating changes that might be needed to the NIPR Producer Database (PDB).
• Heard a report from the Risk Management Agency (RMA). RMA subject-matter experts have reviewed the Crop Adjuster Proficiency Program (CAPP) of the National Crop Insurance Services (NCIS), which requires specific approval from RMA. Recommendations have been sent to NCIS on modifying the test questions and NCIS has indicated they will make the necessary revisions. RMA has reviewed CAPP from a security point of view and determined it is compliant with the Federal Information Security Act of 2002 and with Privacy Act requirements. In addition, CAPP is compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.
• NCIS reported they will make the RMA-recommended changes. CAPP has three parts to the program, and 60 hours of training is required before taking the online examination. There is a bank of questions that are randomly chosen each time an exam is generated, and the questions are actively updated and are current. The exam is open book, because there are many changes each year and there are many technical-related issues. To date, 2,862 adjusters have passed the examination, with approximately 100 adjusters passing on a weekly basis. The NCIS Board last week agreed to revise CAPP so that beginning February 2010 all examinations will be proctored.