IBAC Data Exchange Project moves closer to round-trip data transactions between brokers and insurers

The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC) is moving onto the third phase of its Data Exchange Project.
The intention of IBAC’s Data Exchange Project is to develop concurrent communication between broker and insurer systems within guidelines articulated by IBAC. These guidelines include:
• data transactions that start and end in the BMS;
• data flowing between systems electronically and transparently, without user invention or data entry on insurer portals, systems or pop-up screens;
• transmission formats and content that strictly follow CSIO standards;
• immediate response generation by insurer systems, such as a simple acknowledgement, error message or, ideally, a complete return transaction; and
• any translation or manipulation of data to accommodate an insurer’s system occurs on the insurer’s side of the transaction (not within the broker system).
Phase I of the project involved verifying the vendors’ ability to generate one standard, specific, CSIO-compliant XML Policy Change transaction from within their respective broker systems and electronically transmit it to a specified location.
In Phase II of the project, now completed, The Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO) reviewed and approved electronic messages submitted by two insurers, Aviva Canada and Intact Insurance, as sample automated responses to policy change requests from broker management systems (BMS).
Phase III of the project, now underway, will bring the BMS vendors back into the electronic loop. Participating organizations – including Keal Systems, Custom Software Solutions, Power Broker, PolicyWorks, Cim-Data and Applied Systems – will work together with insurers to pilot a virtual round-trip transaction from broker to insurer system and back again.