ACORD’s 2023 Annual Member Report Details Achievements in Industry-Wide Digitalization Efforts

Report includes new ACORD research revealing a material correlation between high-performing insurance organization Total Shareholder Return (TSR) and use of ACORD assets

New York, NY (Mar. 20, 2024) – ACORD, the global standards-setting body for the insurance industry, is pleased to announce the release of its 2023 Member Report, detailing its efforts on behalf of its members over the past year. ACORD welcomed more than 100 new members across various stakeholder types, from carriers to brokers to solution providers. The report notes several key achievements, including:

• Expansion of ACORD Next-Generation Digital Standards (NGDS), which provide lightweight, technology-agnostic Standards for use in fine-grained transactions, such as microservices and RESTful APIs
• Support of London Market modernization with ACORD Global Reinsurance and Large Commercial Standards as the market’s chosen method of data exchange
• Enhancements to ACORD Transcriber, ACORD Solutions Group’s intelligent document processing solution, with launches of extended features leveraging AI- and ML-enabled models to facilitate fast and accurate data extraction and population.

“ACORD is in a unique position to help shape the future of insurance,” said Bill Pieroni, President & CEO of ACORD, in his annual message to the ACORD member community. “We have witnessed great change in the industry, and ACORD has grown and changed alongside our members. From the first standardized forms to AI-based solutions, ACORD has worked with our members to enable transformation and drive impact across our ecosystem.”

The full report can be accessed at www.acord.org/2023report. Highlights include:

The Value of Standards

As part of the 2023 report, ACORD’s Research & Development team reported the results of a study revealing a material correlation between high-performing insurance organizations’ Total Shareholder Return (TSR) and their use of ACORD assets including ACORD Standards, ACORD Reference Architecture, ACORD Forms, and other tools. For example, high performers in ACORD’s US Property & Casualty Value Creation Study, with a 20% higher TSR than the study average, were also found to leverage ACORD Standards 20% more than average.

ACORD Next-Generation Digital Standards

The expansion of ACORD Next-Generation Digital Standards (NGDS) continued to gain momentum in 2023, fueled by the collaborative efforts of the ACORD community and the increasing demand for lightweight, technology-agnostic standards. These standards are designed for fine-grained transactions, such as those in microservices and RESTful APIs. ACORD’s member-driven approach enables development that transforms how insurance data is processed, exchanged, and utilized, ultimately enhancing the customer experience. In 2023, ACORD collaborated closely with individual members and various working groups, submitting 33 new user stories and updating 237 existing ones to align with established rules and guidelines.

London Market Modernization

ACORD worked closely with the London Market throughout 2023, supporting various digitalization initiatives, with ACORD Global Reinsurance & Large Commercial (GRLC) Standards as the market’s chosen method of data exchange.

In August 2023, the ACORD GRLC Contract, Risk, and Pre-Accounting (CRP) Implementation Toolkit was released, built to support the efficient exchange of contract information within this new messaging standard. The ACORD CRP Standard is fully aligned with the Core Data Record (CDR) and will enable users to submit the CDR dataset to the digital gateway from Velonetic. The CRP Implementation Toolkit marked an important milestone for the London Market, defining the new standard of efficient data exchange and further connecting members of the ACORD GRLC community.

ACORD Reference Architecture

ACORD released several enhancements to the Reference Architecture this year, including major updates to five of the ten highest-level capabilities in the Capability Model.

The Capability Model, a representation of an organization’s business model independent of the company’s structure, processes, people, or domains, was extended to cover processes for Strategic Business Planning, Enterprise Architecture Planning, and Merger and Acquisitions Planning. The Information Model, Data Model, and the Business Glossary also saw more than 250 enhancements, maintaining alignment between the Reference Architecture and ACORD Standards.

ACORD Solutions Group & the ACORD vendor community

ACORD’s wholly owned subsidiary, ACORD Solutions Group, marked several major accomplishments this year, continuing to build a global, collaborative ecosystem and release consistent enhancements to its industry-leading digital solutions.

ACORD Transcriber launched extended features for its intelligent document processing capabilities, using AI- and ML-enabled models to facilitate fast and accurate data extraction and population. With these new enhancements, organizations leveraging ACORD Transcriber can extract data from any insurance document, whether it is unstructured, complex, or even handwritten. ACORD Transcriber’s AI-based capabilities also allow insurance stakeholders to integrate with proprietary or third-party Large Language Models (LLMs).

As a result of this launch, ACORD Transcriber can provide out-of-the-box support for data extraction from submissions, invoices, market reform contracts (MRCs), and more.

ADEPT (ACORD Data Exchange Platform and Translator) has also emerged as the preeminent industry solution for ACORD messaging, offering structured data exchange capabilities for (re)insurers across the global ecosystem. As a key component of the London Market modernization initiative, ADEPT will provide a digital access point for insurance stakeholders to connect with the market.

ACORD Solutions Group’s global network of insurance stakeholders continued to grow in 2023. The Licensed Integrator Partner (LIP) program welcomed more insurance organizations to its expanding network of solutions providers, now hosting more than 50 members. As Licensed Integrator Partners, many insurance organizations leveraged ACORD Solutions Group’s portfolio of capabilities, further enabling real-time data exchange.

About ACORD

ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) is the global standards-setting body for the insurance and related financial services industries. ACORD facilitates fast, accurate data exchange and efficient workflows through the development of electronic standards, standardized forms, and tools to support their use. ACORD engages thousands of insurance and reinsurance companies, agents and brokers, software providers, financial services organizations and industry associations in more than 100 countries. ACORD maintains offices in New York and London. Learn more at www.acord.org.

Source: ACORD

Tags: ACORD, digitization