CSIO AGM outlines web position

Within a period of two years the Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO) has moved from two standards of personal lines EDI and paper forms to a current total of five standards, including Internet screen guidelines, says president Klaas Westera at the organization’s recently held AGM.

Over the past year the CSIO updated 10 existing forms and released three new forms of the “farm form” and the “vehicle inspection authorization form” in both English and French. The organization also upgraded all forms to be computer-based, of which all 24 forms are now available in either PDF or PCL formats, CD, and at the CSIO website. Westera points out that the organization’s drive to develop Internet screen standards has been highly successful with four “transaction” standards now in place, and work underway on a further two. The CSIO has also initiated work on a fourth set of standards under XML, which Westera describes as “ideally suited to real-time data exchange over Internet-based communication links. We will complete our personal lines XML standards work in the first half of this year.”

Furthermore, progress continues to be made on the CSIO’s earlier-announced “Internet Insurance Portal”, scheduled for launch later this year, Westera says. “The CSIO Insurance Portal employs all the five new standards that CSIO and its members have been working on so diligently over the last few years.” When asked by one of the members present at the AGM to what the final cost tally on the portal will likely be, and whether or not insurers will have to provide “top up funding”, Westera was unable to provide a cost figure, but did indicate that further additional member financing would likely be required.

CSIO vice chairman John Morin (speaking on behalf of chairman Howard Moran) says the move toward XML standards was developed in collaboration with the organization’s U.S. counterpart, Acord, and therefore offers added “harmonization” benefits between the two countries. Commenting on the proposed CSIO Internet portal, Morin adds, “…it [the portal] was designed very carefully to address the needs of all, to permit participation by all, and to allow for an evolutionary move towards a revolutionary result”.