IBM Joins Insurance Industry Standards Group

IBM today announced it had joined the insurance industry’s nonprofit standards organization ACORD (the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development).

In joining ACORD, IBM brings its brings global leadership in driving adoption of open technology standards, such as XML.

As an Associate Member of ACORD, IBM will participate on ACORD sub-committees to bring together the multiple standards in use within the insurance industry into a common structure. IBM will also help ACORD insurance members map the use of ACORD standards to IBM’s Insurance Application Architecture (IAA).

IAA provides the structure for insurers to represent and process their data internally, facilitating integration of legacy business applications with new e-business applications. IAA is licensed by more than 140 global customers and software vendors representing over 35 percent of written premiums worldwide.

ACORD establishes standards for the exchange of information in all sectors of the global insurance industry, making it significantly easier for insurance companies to transact business with their partners and commercial customers.

Widespread adoption of these standards is expected to help insurers reduce costs, implement straight through processing and drive new revenues through e-business.