When American insurers think of standards, only one name is spoken: ACORD.
The organization that cut its teeth on paper forms is now moving the insurance-technology clock forward,
thanks to the development of its XML standards. The time for a single language of insurance has arrived,
but there is a big step that still remainsimplementation.

You can dress up your business processes with the latest technology, but in many ways the problems of today are similar to the problems of 30 years ago. Weve come a long way, says Mele Lynn Fuller, Safeco Corporations director of agency interface and insurance standards. The thing that is interesting, though, is that the problems are the same. Weve just got better tools to solve the problems. One of todays larger continuing problems involves communication, particularly between carriers and agencies. Fuller says the tool helping to bridge that communication gap is XML (eXstensible Markup Language), the language of insurance.
XML has become a part of the insurance landscape largely due to the efforts of ACORD, the nonprofit insurance association whose mission is to facilitate the development and use of standards for the insurance and financial services industries. There are other insurance standards organizations in the world, but in the United States ACORD has achieved preeminent status. In his study last year on ACORD XML standards for Celent Communications, analyst Matt Josefowicz wrote, Even though XML can enable disparate systems to speak to one another, they cant understand each other unless they are using a common vocabulary. ACORD XML standards maintain a common vocabulary of data and transaction types, enabling insurers to dramatically reduce the difficulty and expense of data interchange and systems interoperability, and cut systems integration costs significantly.

Who Are These Guys?

While ACORD has no enforcement powers and membership is voluntary, there is strength in numbers, and that is the organizations value to the insurance industry. Implementing the ACORD standards is strictly on a voluntary basis, says Rick Gilman, vice president, communications for ACORD. One of our driving goals is to make sure the standards we build and maintain reflect the needs of the members within the industry.
Josefowicz points out ACORD doesnt create the technology insurers use. Its goal is to make insurance technology work better. ACORD doesnt produce any actual technology, just a common vocabulary and syntax for XML data structures and messaging, he says. These vocabulary and syntax are up to date with the needs of the industry.