Australian Insurance Industry Adopts ACORD Messaging Library

ACORD (Pearl River, N.Y.) members in Australia have officially adopted the ACORD Messaging Library (AML) as the data standard for use within the Australian insurance market, says an ACORD press release.

"Insurance is often accused of lagging the banking industry around the efficiency of information flow. This is an important milestone to help close that gap," comments Steve Coles, Allianz's (Munich) CIO for Australia and chairman of the ACORD Australian Advisory Committee.

Major activity to implement ACORD standards in Australia began in 2008 with the creation of the advisory committee, according to the ACORD source. This immediately led to the formation of two working groups focused on the specific needs of their market. One focused on development of a framework, architecture and message design philosophy to meet the needs of the Australian Business Market while the other took on business issues, primarily placement and forms.

The first standardized AML message being implemented will be for Professional Indemnity (PI) content that includes quote, bind and close transactions for new business, renewal, endorsement, and cancellation processing, the ACORD release says.

"Universal data exchange, between consumer, intermediary and product manufacturer, has been achieved with the release of the ACORD PI Australian standard," says Robert Kelly, executive chairman of Australian brokerage Steadfast Group Limited (Sydney). "When this product is fully rolled out, it will deliver efficiency, greater choice, and a competitive environment. Australia is now part of a worldwide standard."

"The rapid advance of ACORD standards in this market is testimony to the dedication and commitment of its leaders within the industry and their shared goal of improving data communication and the processing efficiency of the independent broker" says John Kellington, Senior Vice President of ACORD. "We look forward to further development and implementation efforts and thank all of those who have led this charge towards standardization."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio