Once a software implementation has been completed, both insurance carriers and software developers are eager to refer to their arrangement as a partnership. However, getting to that point requires more than a handshake and a signed contract. There is no guarantee deals eventually will turn out to be beneficial to both sides, but it would be impossible to achieve success without the basic groundwork being laid long before RFPs are issued.

A major part of that groundwork is conducted by the members of ACORD, the industry's leading standards body. ACORD is made up of more than just carriers and vendors, though. As Rick Gilman, vice president communications and industry/government relations for the standards body, puts it, ACORD's membership is made up of all the players in the insurance value chain. "We have carriers, reinsurers, solution providers, agents, brokers, and other associations all coming together to work on developing and driving the implementation of standards," he says. "I would definitely see us as partners with all those players to move the efficiencies and the effectiveness of this industry forward."

Mele Fuller, director of partner integration for Safeco Surety and a 20-year volunteer with ACORD, sees the relationship of ACORD with vendors and carriers as one of an impartial partner that helps the industry develop and implement technology to increase ease of doing business. "[ACORD] provides us with leadership, the management of the standards, and it pulls us together into working groups when the membership requests them. We would not be in a standards environment without it."