S. 3843: TEMP Act

This bill directs the federal crop insurance program to provide for research and development regarding a temperature-based index policy to insure crops (including tomatoes, peppers, sugarcane, strawberries, melons, citrus, peaches, and blueberries) on a nationally-available basis against losses due to a frost or cold weather event.

The research and development must (1) evaluate the effectiveness of risk management tools with respect to low frequency and catastrophic loss weather events, and (2) result in a policy that provides protection for production loss or revenue loss.

The term policy means an insurance policy, plan of insurance, provision of a policy or plan of insurance, and related materials. Under an index policy, claim payments are generally triggered based on a predetermined index that is entirely independent of the individual farm operation (e.g., temperature level). Under such a policy, the payments are automatically triggered when the index reaches a certain level rather than when an insured farmer files a claim.

Written by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.