• Press Room
  • Press Releases
    • 2012
    • 2011
    • 2010
    • 2009
    • 2008
    • 2007
    • 2006
    • 2005
    • 2004
    • 2003
    • 2002
    • 2001
    • 2000
    • 1999
  • Media Contacts
• Newsletters
• Video

News Center

Press Room

DTCC's Insurance File Formats to Become Part of the ACORD Library of Industry Standards

New York, July 21, 2010 — ACORD and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) announced today the record layouts of DTCC's standard fixed file formats offered by their Insurance & Retirement Services business will now be included in the ACORD Life, Annuity and Health standard. This move is intended to foster further adoption of industry-wide standards for data exchange between insurance carriers and distributors.

"DTCC made these copyrighted record layouts, which enables the processing and electronic exchange of insurance information, freely available and open to the industry over seven years ago, in an effort to enable everyone to speak the same language," said Adam Bryan, Managing Director, DTCC Insurance and Retirement Services. "We are very pleased that having them now a part of the ACORD library further defines them not as a proprietary entity, but truly as a recognized industry standard."

ACORD accepts intellectual property contributions from member companies on behalf of the industry, and integrates them through the standards development process to further enhance and expand ACORD standards. ACORD will now maintain these new standards. All requests for changes to the formats will go through ACORD's Maintenance Request process and an ACORD Working Group will be established.

The formats include Positions and Values (POV); Commissions (COM); Financial Activity Reporting (FAR); Licensing and Appointment (LNA); In-Force Transactions (IFT); and Applications and Premium/Subsequent Premium (APP/SUB). These formats, developed as part of DTCC's drive to greater standardization and automation, are EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) file specifications that are currently used to communicate data.

In 2007, DTCC announced further support for the insurance industry's move toward straight-through processing by incorporating new messaging standards into its services that support real-time information exchange across different technology platforms. Following an agreement with ACORD, DTCC's Insurance & Retirement Services has used ACORD's Extensible Markup Language (XML) standards.

"As a member-driven association, we rely on our members to help expand and promote standardization and gratefully accept this donation from DTCC. It's through such donations of intellectual property that ACORD's standards have been able to evolve and grow so rapidly in both depth and breadth," stated Lloyd Chumbley, Vice President, Standards, ACORD. "DTCC has long been committed to insurance industry standards. This will help promote further standards usage across the annuities sector by making these EDI formats publicly available as a true industry standard."

The formats will be posted on ACORD's website (www.acord.org) under Life, Annuity, & Health Downloads and are publicly available.

"This contribution builds on DTCC's efforts to promote standardization and communication in the insurance business, helping the industry mainstream annuities, life and retirement income products just as we have helped mainstream stocks, bonds and mutual funds," Bryan said.

About DTCC

DTCC, through its subsidiaries, provides clearance, settlement and information services for equities, corporate and municipal bonds, government and mortgage-backed securities, money market instruments and over-the-counter derivatives. In addition, DTCC is a leading processor of mutual funds and insurance transactions, linking funds and carriers with their distribution networks. DTCC's depository provides custody and asset servicing for more than 3.6 million securities issues from the United States and 121 other countries and territories, valued at US$33.6 trillion. In 2009, DTCC settled nearly US$1.48 quadrillion in securities transactions. DTCC has operating facilities in multiple locations in the United States and overseas.

DTCC Insurance & Retirement Services connects the insurance industry through the world's largest post-trade infrastructure with processing solutions that support money settlement and information exchange between product manufacturers and distributors in the main areas of a product life-cycle including transactions that are pre-issue and post-issue of a contract, monitoring and reporting of contract activity as well as agent support services. DTCC is a partner and leader with the insurance industry in the effort to automate, standardize and centralize transaction and information processing for insurance products. Insurance & Retirement Services are provided by DTCC's National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) subsidiary.