Senior officials from 25 insurance carriers and broker/dealer firms gathered at The Roosevelt Hotel, New York City, in mid-May to discuss the needs of their businesses and how Insurance Services can help them carry out their strategic plans. During this time, individuals from the carrier side agreed to become members of DTCC's first Carrier Steering Committee, and all agreed to take part in the newly formed Insurance Services Senior Advisory Board.

"While we have accomplished much in the past ten years toward creating standardized and automated solutions for insurance processing, we believe the best is yet to come," said John Ziambras, managing director and general manager, Insurance Services. "As we continue to expand our service offerings in the future, we want to ensure that we are aligned with our customers' needs and direction so that our services are clearly on target with them."

Key among the topics discussed and debated were DTCC's role in driving straight-through processing and standardized usage of its services across the board, a critical issue that needs to be addressed soon, according to attendees. The group also weighed in on the steps required to expand industry adoption of Insurance Services so that a larger percentage of the market can increase processing efficiencies while lowering costs and operational risks.

Other discussion points centered on the opportunities for carriers to expand distribution channels through DTCC's centralized portal, and working with industry vendors to maximize usage of DTCC's services and deliver them more quickly to market.

"It was clear to us that our members want more rapid expansion of our services and that the standards be used more consistently throughout the industry. This is a challenge we are going to tackle immediately because it's an important element in the industry's drive toward STP," Ziambras noted. "Our collaboration with NAVA and ACORD will clearly be key in our efforts to make this happen."

A subsequent edition of Insurance Services News will provide readers with a full report of these meetings.