Many companies are working to standardize their business processes, but ACORD is taking it one step further–the standards organization for the insurance industry is looking to standardize business processes for the entire insurance industry. ACORD received a head start on the process, thanks to a contribution last year from IBM.

The IBM model presented to ACORD is high level, according to John Kellington, CTO and senior vice president of the Ohio Casualty Group, who was selected as chair of the ACORD standards committee earlier this year. "It's not at a detail level that you would need from a standards perspective, but it is all encompassing," he notes. "We can look at the framework and say: This is where we have a good alignment, and this is where we don't. It gives us the ability to frame out [processes]."

ACORD has work ahead to standardize processes, but Kellington believes this is an important starting point because it offers insurers the big picture. Denise Garth, vice president, membership and standards, for ACORD, agrees with the analogy. She explains the standards group will build a registry of the actual business process services that will tie to the process models at a high level.

Recommended For You

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.