Geographic Rating Area

Oracle Revenue Management and Billing enables you to use the geographic rating area as a pricing parameter while defining the age based, tier based, and additional fee pricing rules. This feature facilitates you to offer different rates for a price item based on different geographic rating area.

The system enables you to add and edit a geographic rating area from the user interface. You can also add or edit a set of geographic rating areas at once using the File Upload Interface utility. However, note that while editing a geographic rating area, you can only change the end date to a far future date and the status from Active to Inactive.

While maintaining a geographic rating area in the system, you can also list the policy plans available in the geographic rating area. You can add the policy plan information for a geographic rating area from the user interface or through the File Upload Interface utility. But, you cannot edit the policy plan information of a geographic rating area through the File Upload Interface utility.

You can upload the geographic rating areas from the CSV file using the C1GEORATINGARCSVUPLD file request type through the File Transformation and Upload (C1-FTRAN) batch.

Once you define a geographic rating area, the system can derive the geographic rating area for a membership using the Address Source and Address Type characteristic types. The system supports two address sources named Policy Holder and Main Subscriber and three address types named Person Mailing, Person Seasonal, and Account Override.

On adding a membership to a policy plan, the system first derives the characteristic types from the Address Source Characteristic Type and Address Type Characteristic Type attributes of a geographic rating area preference. The system considers the geographic rating area preference which is specified in the Rating Area Field Mapping for Group option type of the C1-ASOBLLNG feature configuration. Then, the system searches for these characteristics on the following entities in the specified sequence:

1. Policy Plan

2. State where the Policy Plan is Issued

3. Policy

4. State where the Policy is Issued

If these characteristics are not defined for any of the above listed entities, the system derives the default address source and address type from the geographic rating area preference.

If the address source is set to Policy Holder, the system fetches the value from the Parent Customer Policy Person Role option type of the C1-ASOBLLNG feature configuration. The system then derives the person who is associated with the policy using the parent customer policy person role. Once the address source and address type are derived, the system fetches the state and zip code from the address type of the address source. For example, if the address source is set to Policy Holder and address type is set to Person Mailing, the system fetches the state and zip code from the policy holder's mailing address. Once the state and zip code are fetched from the address, the system checks whether the zip code is a 9-digit code. If not, the system appends zeros to make it a 9-digit zip code. The system then derives the value of the Use Plan Details attribute from the geographic rating area preference. If the attribute is set to Y, the system then derives a geographic rating area for the state, zip code, policy number, plan number, and source system combination. However, if the attribute is set to N, the system then derives a geographic rating area for the state and zip code combination. If the system could not derive the geographic rating area, the system derives the default geographic rating area from the geographic rating area preference. Once the geographic rating area is derived, the system stores the geographic rating area for the membership. The characteristic type specified in the Geographic Rating Area Characteristic Type attribute of the geographic rating area preference is used to store geographic rating area for the membership. The effective date of the characteristic is set to effective date of the address.

The geographic rating area of the membership must be changed when the address of the policy holder or main subscriber is updated. Therefore, when an address of a person is change, the system identifies the following:

• Memberships of policies where the person is the policy holder

• Memberships where the person is the main customer

For each membership, the system searches for the Address Source and Address Type characteristics on the following entities in the specified sequence:

1. Policy Plan

2. State where the Policy Plan is Issued

3. Policy

4. State where the Policy is Issued

If these characteristics are not defined for any of the above listed entities, the system derives the default address source and address type from the geographic rating area preference. If the address source is set to Policy Holder, the system fetches the value from the Parent Customer Policy Person Role option type of the C1-ASOBLLNG feature configuration. The system then derives the person who is associated with the policy using the parent customer policy person role.

Once the address source and address type are derived, the system fetches the state and zip code from the address type of the address source. The system then derives a geographic rating area for the state, zip code, policy number, plan number, and source system combination or for the state and zip code combination depending on the value defined for the Use Plan Details attribute. If the system could not derive the geographic rating area, the system derives the default geographic rating area from the geographic rating area preference. If the geographic rating area is different, the system creates a new characteristic to store the geographic rating area for the membership. The effective date of the characteristic is set to effective date of the address.

To use the geographic rating area as a pricing parameter, you need to define the Geographic Rating Area parameter where:

• Value Type is to Adhoc

• Source Entity is set to Membership

• Source Type is set to Characteristic

• Source Type Code is set to a characteristic type which is specified in the Geographic Rating Area Characteristic Type attribute of the geographic rating area preference

• Parameter Usage is set to Price Item and Pricing Eligibility Criteria

Once the Geographic Rating Area parameter is defined, you need to associate the parameter with the price items for which you want to define different rates in a pricing rule using the parameter. This helps to define different base fee for a price item based on geographic rating area to which the membership belongs.

A new screen named Geographic Rating Area is introduced in this release. It enables you to add, edit, and inactivate a geographic rating area.

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