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ACORD
Issue No : 03 | | As part of our ongoing objective to provide important and useful information to those with an interest in the insurance industry and its future, we will be bringing to you our summary of important organizations involved with and leading the future of the industry. Today we will be discussing ACORD and providing a framework for some of its significant impact in the industry. |  | About ACORD
ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) is a global, nonprofit standards development organization serving the insurance and related financial services industries. ACORD’s mission is to facilitate the development of open consensus data standards and standard forms. ACORD Standards and services improve data quality and transparency, resulting in greater efficiency and expanded market reach.
Below we provide you with information about the ACORD’s standards programs and the resources they provide to help you implement ACORD standards more efficiently. | What are ACORD Standards?
ACORD Standards are a shared language that allows sending and receiving of data efficiently to and from multiple parties. This means users can sharply cut the expense of data exchange and systems interoperability, and reduce systems integration costs dramatically. ACORD Standards allow an organization to capture data once—and share and process it while retaining the integrity of the original data source. It is estimated that, insurance carriers already have realized or anticipate realizing integration efficiencies of 20-30% by using ACORD XML standards. | Standards - Who uses them and What are the benefits
ACORD Standards can be used by Agents/ Distributor/Brokers, Insurers/Reinsurers and Solution Providers.
ACORD standards play a critical role in creating data transparency for insurance and financial institutions. They provide a common data vocabulary for communication. As an example ACORD XML standards can be used to create a web-based real-time platform for reinsurance pricing, negotiation, and placement. The platform allows a ceding insurer to send the typical data in a message to a reinsurance carrier while including non-typical information (e.g., attachments, documents, and instructional data). Users can extract data from (and communicate data to) diverse systems, in a state-of-the-art security environment. Additionally, XML standards from ACORD and XBRL International are beginning to revolutionize financial reporting processes, with ACORD collaborating in an effort to harmonize standards in the insurance value chain with these financial-reporting standards. | Forms Programs and e-forms
ACORD offers a variety of programs that allow users to access ACORD Forms. There are various kinds of Forms programs which are divided between Agents/ Distributor/Brokers, Insurers/Reinsurers and Solution Providers. Some of the form programs and the benefits of using them are listed below.
Within the Property & Casualty/Surety (PCS) community there are standards for the personal, commercial, specialty and surety lines of business. These support a variety of needs within the PCS world, including: Accounting; Certificates of Insurance; Claims; Placement & Service (such as quote, new business, policy change).
Likewise the Life, Annuity and Health (LAH) standards perform the same advances for Life, Annuity and Health business lines as well as for life reinsurance.
Within the ACORD Forms Pool Program insurance companies can obtain standard forms that meet all regulatory requirements for the U.S. property and casualty market.
Starting in early 2009 more than 200 of the most widely used ACORD forms were made available as eForms, with improved features and capabilities. An eForm is an electronic fillable ACORD form that is capable of collecting data. The data from an eForm can then be extracted for re-use, including populating other forms. On the surface, eForms appear identical to current ACORD forms. On the inside, eForms’ capabilities take ACORD Forms the next step into the future.
As you can imagine, the use of standardized forms throughout the industry provide savings to all involved - agents need be familiar with only one (“the standard”); Software (independent of vendors) can more easily handle that “standard” data and process it and carriers supporting the data can integrate it into all their systems, since everyone is “speaking the same language”. This is a tremendous advance which benefits all the parties involved. | | Insurance Youth is a non-profit organization aiming to develop youth into the leaders of tomorrow. |
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