ACORD Briefs

FireStar Software, Inc. (Acton, MA) and Microsoft (Redmond, WA) announced a "go-to-market" agreement intending to assist enterprise developers implement industry-specific, model-based applications, supporting ACORD standards and IBM's (Armonk, NY) Insurance Application Architecture (IAA). Under terms of the agreement FireStar Software, which provides a data service layer used to integrate new applications into distributed environments, and Microsoft will participate in joint marketing and sales activities.

HNC Software (San Jose, CA) and its development collaborator, The Hartford Financial Services Group, debuted HNC XML Manager For Insurance, which uses ACORD SPX (Service Provider eXtension) standards to ease exchange of insurance data for faster policy issuance and reconciliation. HNC says XML Manager For Insurance allows carriers to more precisely define and maintain insurance policy and claims application data requirements by business transaction, line of business, state and date in compliance with the ACORD SPX standard. Advantages that the new product brings carriers include increased internal efficiency, capability to quickly update forms standards to reflect underwriting changes, and reduced need to rework data before starting policy processing, according to HNC. XML Manager For Insurance features include a structured graphical interface for business analysts to use in defining data requirements; an automated ACORD schema importer to incorporate the most recent industry standards; data validation mechanisms for submitted policy applications; automatic generation of SPX documents for agency use; and generation of business rules for processing policy data according to the carrier's specifications.

AscendantOne, Inc. (Nashua, NH), and The Deloitte & Touche RMIS/Lab (Hartford) have entered into a joint relationship to provide advanced, Web/network-ready solutions and services for property and casualty insurance underwriting, rate/quote, policy and account management. "To meet the emerging network computing needs of P&C firms, our affiliation with D&T's RMIS/Lab allows us to utilize our domain knowledge and expertise, while having direct access to the global resources of a top tier professional services firm," according to Paul Philp, president and CEO of AscendantOne.

Providence, RI-based GRX Technologies launched version 3.0 of its GRX Risk Platform. GRX incorporated new features in the 3.0 release, including an "intelligent interface" for improved user interaction; enhanced support for complex business partner relationships; advanced document collaboration capabilities; export capability to multiple formats, including Word, Excel and XML; advanced XML query capabilities; "smartshots" providing import capability from intelligent Excel templates; and utilization of Web forms based on ACORD XML message structures.

Global e-business solutions provider G. A. Sullivan (St. Louis) released Enterprise Orchestrator for Insurance (EOI), a new business integration platform providing centralized management of enterprise integration at data, application and business process level. EOI supports ACORD XML and EDI standards, and has been architected using up-to-date integration technologies such as XML, Web services and the Microsoft .NET platform, according to G. A. Sullivan. The platform's document routing, transformation and tracking infrastructure is executed through Mircrosoft Biz Talk Server.

Commercial P&C software provider Instec (Naperville, IL) introduced what it says is the industry's first complete, native Windows commercial package policy processing solution. The QuickSolver Commercial Package Policy (CPP) system is a countrywide rating and policy issuance solution that supports the full policy life cycle for bureau and client-specific programs for commercial property, general liability, inland marine and crime lines of business.

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