Commercial Lines Working Group Continues to Advance Data Standards

The CSIO Commercial Lines (CL) Working Group held its most recent meeting on May 1st to continue its work on the advancement of standards in CL. Made up of insurers, vendors and IBAC, the goal of the Working Group is to create a starting point where brokers can send CL policy information to an insurer directly from their BMS and receive a quote.

CSIO’s XML Data Standards for CL are up-to-date, mature and ready to be programmed. However, due to both the complexity of commercial risks, and the investment required to program the standards, broad industry support is needed to ensure successful widespread adoption among insurers, vendors and brokers.

As a first step in gaining this industry support, CSIO launched a CL Working Group in July 2018, bringing key industry stakeholders together. Since its launch, the Working Group has met several times, establishing a minimum data set of common elements and paving the way for the implementation of CL data standards in the broker channel.

“Having commercial data standards is key, so I’m very excited about the progress made,” says Andrew Janzen, president of Janzen Insurance in Surrey and chair of IBABC’s Technology Committee. “Think of it – the full underwriting information and coverage requirements get loaded to the insurer’s system for review, quoting and response, with no re-keying of data. We should see significant cost savings on submissions for brokers and insurers alike. It’s a real win-win.”

During the May 1st meeting, the Working Group focused its efforts on the quote and bind process for a specific risk class: Contractors. There was excellent discussion as the participants explored posing the additional questions for each risk group individually in order to accurately determine the insurers’ risk appetite.

At this Working Group, it was also agreed upon that the CSIO Data Standards would be updated to include the IBC code list.

The Working Group will continue to meet regularly to build on its efforts toward widespread adoption of CL Data Standards. Updates on CL Data Standards and the progress of the Working Group can be found on the CL Data Standards web page on CSIO.com.