Highlights of the Strategic Plan and Development Agenda

In November 2007, the Senior Advisory Board tasked Insurance & Retirement Services with producing a strategic plan for achieving automation of insurance processing.

After an industry-wide review, participants endorsed the main elements of the plan at the June 2008 meeting. Overall, it calls for DTCC to assume a greater leadership role in automation, particularly in the annuity space, and to take a broader view, which includes building and implementing services while developing or adopting standards that meet industry requirements and satisfy regulatory demands.

Main plan components include:

• Expand distribution channels by directly bringing automation to independent and bank broker/dealers or through clearing firms. Working with the solution providers on standardization and cost structure is critical in bringing automation to these new customer segments.
• Support the NAVA STP initiative with Attachments (a standalone process for electronic communication of imaged documentation or forms) and Replacements (a centralized system for automation and standardization of replacement processing between carriers).
• Develop a central warehouse for product information, leveraging the enormous storage capabilities of DTCC. This could provide the industry with a key competitive foundation for future business growth.

Fund Transfers (FTR), already in production, supports distributor control and reporting on representative-initiated transfers of underlying securities with a variable insurance contract

As DTCC Insurance & Retirement Services’ first web services product using an XML data format, Fund Transfers paves the way for the next web services product, Attachments (ATT) later in 2008. The second quarter of 2009 will bring the third Web services product, Replacements (RPL).

Both of these services support the NAVA straight-through-processing initiative for annuities. DTCC works with NAVA (The Association for Insured Retirement Solutions) to lead the industry effort to implement the organization’s STP plan developed in 2005.

Insurance & Retirement Services’ first front-end application, LNA Access^sm, went into full production in May 2008. Its success has generated discussion about developing “Access” products to support request and response requirements for BIN (broker identification number), and REP (registered representative), currently available via mainframe as in force transactions changes.