CSIOnet Gets a Facelift

The Centre for Studies in Insurance Operations (CSIO) is switching service providers this month for its upload/download system, CSIOnet.

All insurance brokers, companies and vendors that use the network must change their IP address setting on Friday, Nov. 21, 2008, to ensure their business continues uninterrupted.

The change is intended to improve service for approximately 1,800 broker offices across Canada. As of press time, CSIO had contacted approximately 1,500 of these broker offices, mostly by phone, to let them know about the switch.

“CSIOnet is the network that’s used between all parties in the property and casualty broker distribution channel,” says CSIO president Steve Kaukinen. “It’s a private network for members only, and it acts like an e-mail service between brokers and insurance companies. The platform is probably about 10 years old.

“We’re moving to a new platform for CSIOnet, with a new service provider, and we believe it’s going to give all of our members a much more secure, better way to move their data between each other.”

Telus will be providing the new, Microsoft exchange platform.

Among its many advantages, the new platform for CSIOnet is anticipated to be more reliable than the older proprietary platform, which was built before Internet communications became the norm. Described as a “more robust” solution, the new platform will include 128-byte encryption technology of the same type used by governments and the military.

Dean Bottschen, the manager of membership services and technical development at CSIO, says the new platform promises to be very simple to manage and operate.

“It’s not proprietary, meaning it’s the same as [technology used in] any other office,” Bottschen says. “When an update from Microsoft comes out, you can or cannot apply it immediately.

“Currently, we have no updates. It’s a manual process to maintain that service…

“So we are moving to a state-of-the-art Microsoft exchange platform, which, as you know, almost any technical guru out there can manage and function.”

Kaukinen says CSIO has held back on providing to brokers the IP address of the new server prior to the Nov. 21 date. He notes the service will not be available prior to that date and “we do know from experience that [if the IP information is released now] a number of brokers will try to do it now and they won’t be able to work.”

Kaukinen says the long-term vision is that the need for the CSIOnet technology will diminish as new technology becomes available to take its place. “In the future, I would hope that as we move to new platforms, and as CSIO XML standards really proliferate in the industry, the need for CSIOnet will wane, because brokers and companies will be doing real-time data transactions between each other,” he says.

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The new platform for CSIOnet is anticipated to be more reliable than the older proprietary platform, which was built before Internet communications became the norm.