DTCC Expands Insurance Biz

A player in the annuity market since 1995, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) has increased its presence with the release of an annuity application that will allow broker/dealers and banks to complete online annuity applications.

DTCC (New York), a financial services post-trade infrastructure organization that offers insurance services primarily to broker/dealers through its Insurance Processing Service (IPS), partnered with Pivot/InfoOne (Columbus, OH) to launch the automated online annuity sales solution.

J. Randall Grespin, managing director, distribution services, DTCC, also says DTCC is planning to expand into other types of insurance product distribution. The relationship with Pivot is one aspect of this broadened distribution strategy. "In order to expand from just annuities to other types of insurance products, other insurance-specific support services are needed," Grespin says. "There needs to be more support tools, such as having access to medical information and underwriting requirements. Pivot can help with expediting the collection of data."

DTCC also is partnering with ACORD (Pearl River, NY) to work toward a set of common data standards that the annuity and life insurance industry can use for exchanging information. "We can't create a closed market for insurance," says Marc Raiser, vice president, insurance services, DTCC. "Standards for transmission will create value-added services and will ultimately help to grow the marketplace."

Lloyd Chumbley, program manager, life standards, ACORD, says that as certain life products grow into commodity-type products, "the partnership with DTCC will help summarize transactions so the products can be distributed by broker/dealers."

Greg MacSweeney is editorial director of InformationWeek Financial Services, whose brands include Wall Street & Technology, Bank Systems & Technology, Advanced Trading, and Insurance & Technology. View Full Bio