NAILBA Announces Fixed-Product XML Standard

NU Online News Service, March 31, 2003, 4:40 p.m. EST – The National Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies, Fairfax, Va., has announced a new technology standard for agency management systems.

The standard, which will help independent producers exchange information about fixed annuities and fixed life policies with insurers, is based on the XMLife format from the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, Pearl River, N.Y.

The new NAILBA standard “is the first in a series involving the conversion of agency management systems to ACORD XMLife standardized format,” NAILBA says. “Major companies from both [carriers and agency management system vendors] are expected to adopt and implement the standard by year-end.”

NAILBA will be providing the fixed-product standard for free to agencies and to carriers that are ACORD members, according to Jeff Kraber, NAILBA’s technology advocate.

“It’s an open standard,” Kraber says.

XML is a set of rules for developing systems for labeling the pieces of information in an electronic data file. Businesses can use software built around XML standards to translate data from one format to another or to draw data from many different computer systems into a single application.

ACORD has been working to establish XML standards for the insurance industry.

NAILBA says its technology committee teamed up with insurers and agency management system vendors to come up with the new fixed-product standard.