ACORD Messaging Standards

Internationally the standards for electronic data exchange, as used in the commercial and reinsurance market, are based on ACORD RLC and DRI messages. The London market has decided that any new initiative they adopt will be based on these standards.

ACORD Standards provide a common communication method which allow different companies to transact business electronically with agents, brokers and other data partners in the insurance, reinsurance and related financial services industries. By specifying a common message format and structure they assist Straight Through Processing (STP), facilitate electronic data exchange and reduce error, thus increasing the efficiency of the entire industry.

The ACORD standards are constantly under revision and updates to some of the standards are released on a twice yearly basis, e.g. RLC. Trace have implemented the ACORD standards using an abstraction layer between the application code and the underlying ACORD message. This allows us to develop the application with as little dependence on the version of the underlying ACORD standard as possible. As a general rule The Trace Managed Messaging Service will support multiple versions of ACORD standards.

While our initial implementations using ACORD standards are to support London Market Initiatives, the service is not restricted to this and may be used in any business transaction that requires the exchange of data or documents domestically or internationally.

For further details of ACORD Standards, visit: http://www.acord.org/Standards/value.aspx