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The strength in the standards ACORD supports for the life insurance industry lies in the ACORD Life, Annuity & Health Data Model, which defines the data the life insurance industry needs to communicate.
- About the Life, Annuity & Health Data Model
- How the Life Data Model Works
- Download Areas Public Specifications and Documentation
- Life Members Only
- Consulting and Training
- Contact
About the Life, Annuity & Health Data Model
By applying the Life, Annuity & Health Data Model to all the life specifications ACORD supports, the industry receives four major benefits: Reusability - By reusing this model in our latest initiatives, such as XML
for Life, Annuity & Health, ACORD has leapfrogged other industries in the ability to define XML-based standards. Our speed to market on all our initiatives is fast - much faster than if we did not have a reusable data model.
Consistency - As an industry built and industry maintained vocabulary of insurance specific domain information, the Life, Annuity & Health Data Model provides a structured, organized and defined means of sharing complex insurance information to all parties in the industry.
Expandability - We keep a keen eye on the future when we model the data for today. As a result, we can easily 'plug in' new data requirements of the standards-setting efforts to the data hierarchy, expanding on our previous work rather than breaking and starting over. We can support critical functions like backward compatibility and interoperability as we move forward to meet the newest needs of our participants.
Interoperability - Keeping the data model intact is critical to achieving interoperability within the life insurance industry. Back office systems that process transactions and send data feeds back and forth to users can use a standard that is based directly off the ACORD Life, Annuity & Health Data Model, providing 100% interoperability between the components that make up the enterprise and ensuring that all the pieces fit together.
How the Life, Annuity & Health Data
Model Works
Each of the boxes in the data model represents an object. For each of these objects, a comprehensive set of data requirements is defined. The end result is hundreds of pages of documentation defining the details within the data model.
The model follows a data object hierarchy, making it highly portable to today's technologies and providing the most flexibility when implementing. The products typically considered when building out the model include:
- All aspects of traditional life insurance (e.g. term, whole life, variable products)
- Annuities
- Disability
- Health
- Long Term Care
- Investments (e.g. mutual funds, stocks and bonds)
Furthermore, we've modeled the data in such a fashion that as additional product lines are added, the model can easily be expanded to include those product lines. It also supports multiple languages, multiple jurisdictions (e.g. states), and multi-national use.
The model defines the common data in various applications within the insurance industry and looks at the overlap of data between diverse products. Product categories typically considered include:
- Contact/client management
- Sales and in-force product illustrations
- Financial planning/needs analysis
- Electronic applications
- Policy administration
- Underwriting systems
- Commission processing
- Third party communications
Throughout the definition of the model, the focus is on the sharing and communication of information. If information needs to be moved from one system to another; from one party to another; or from one process to another, we model it into the ACORD Life, Annuity & Health Data Model.
We also use a phased approach for development. Rather than trying to model all the information needed by the life insurance industry up front, we follow the top priorities of our participants and focus our efforts on those activities/needs. This ensures we do not spend years on the drawing board but instead provide standards quickly that our participants can implement right away. Therefore, data requirements that may not be priorities today can quickly be incorporated tomorrow as the needs develop.
Data outside the model
As we build out the model, there will always be data elements that do not end up within the model. This could be because of the phased development approach, or more likely because an element is a proprietary requirement that does not belong in a standard. In all implementations of the data model, a way to extend the model to support unique requirements is provided. This allows the standard to be applied for cross-application communication, and still be functional within a proprietary implementation, allowing the standard to be fully adopted across the enterprise.
Build it Once. Use it Everywhere.
Contact
If you wish to receive more information about the ACORD Life, Annuity & Health Data Model, please contact the Life, Annuity & Health Program Management:
Clifford
L. Chaney
Phone: +1 402-328-2363
Email: cchaney@acord.org
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