Kellington Joins ACORD As SVP

Former Ohio Casualty CIO and IBM consultant John Kellington has joined ACORD in the newly created position of senior vice president in charge of standards. A long-term supporter and participant in the standards association from the carrier side, Kellington had served on the ACORD board of directors and was chairman of the ACORD standards committee.

Kellington's move comes in the wake of the completion of Liberty Mutual's acquisition of Ohio Casualty (Fairfield, Ohio), which is in the process of being integrated into the Boston-based carrier's Liberty Mutual Agency Markets business unit.

In his new role, Kellington will oversee the development of standards for life and annuity, property/casualty and surety, and reinsurance and large commercial. He will also take charge of the development of the ACORD Standards Framework.

Kellington has a long pedigree associated with the IBM technology on which the Framework is based, and he played a key role in the donation of relevant technology by IBM to ACORD. While an IBM consultant Kellington had a part in the development of the vendor's Insurance Application Architecture (IAA), which he later leveraged in the development of Ohio Casualty's PARIS (policy administration, rating and issuance system) application.

The success of PARIS and Ohio Casualty's systems general have only increased Kellington's appreciation for standards. "At Ohio Casualty I saw the value in establishing an enterprise architecture, and how that can be leveraged to improve the entire environment," he says. "What we achieved there demonstrated the opportunity for the entire industry."

In his new role at ACORD, Kellington sees an opportunity foster such an outcome. "Playing a part in developing standards for the entire industry is an opportunity there's no way I could pass up, it's the opportunity to participate in a tremendous value-add to the industry," he says. "Leveraging the value of ACORD standards through and through at Ohio Casualty was dramatically powerful, so I fundamentally believe in those concepts and the value they can bring to the insurance industry globally."

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