ACORD standards develop over time by taking account of members’ feedback, based on their experience of implementing the standard’s specifications.
ACORD may publish up to two new releases of their existing standards a year, depending on members’ demand.
However, there has been latency—especially by early adopters—in moving on to a newer version of the standard. Up to this point, most are operating on hybrids of an ACORD Placing standard published in 2005. The market’s inherent multi-trading relationships mean that updating an existing implementation without a coordinated approach can be a resource intensive activity, with little perceived benefits for individuals.
Market participants have put in a huge effort working with ACORD in specifying the 2009.1 version of the Placing standard, especially in aligning London market specialities with international practices.  The decision to standardise on this version signifies:

• The market’s recognition of synergy—in order to reap the maximum benefits, we must work together and move in sync
• The market’s commitment in taking full advantage of the standard’s evolution through physical implementation, not stopping short at agreeing the specifications on paper only

This latest 2009 version of the standard focuses on complex business scenarios including:

• Multi section risks
• Declarations
• Subjectivities
• Management of endorsements
• Capturing a richer set of structured information

The market has agreed to implement the ACORD 2009.1 structure for Placing on   19 February 2010 and to incorporate incrementally the above business capabilities throughout 2010.
Along with this decision, the market would deter operations on any other versions of the Placing standard.  This means current implementers would need to complete their own preparations for upgrade by the market agreed deadlines, or risk missing out on their business.
The Lloyd’s Exchange will have the 2009.1 structure in place by Q4 2009.  This means current and future participants on the Exchange can have a head start on the upgrade to the 2009.1 standard should they choose to.

A way to save time in keeping up to date

I’m sure you all like to keep up to date with the latest blogs and news on lloyds.com but do you find it takes a long time to find the relevant website or page, or you’ve missed something as it has moved off the front page before you got to it?  Have you thought about using an RSS feed? Once setup you will be able to have all the websites and pages you are interested in, in one place and at a click of a button.  The websites and pages are then automatically updated with the latest information without you doing a thing!  Never miss an important event again!
 
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it’s really easy to setup.
 
Click the link below to find out more about what an RSS link is, how it works and how to set one up:

http://www.lloyds.com/News_Centre/RSS_feeds.htm

Tags: ACORD, Lloyd's Exchange

This entry was posted by Carl Phillips on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Market Operations.