New Partnership is a Step Toward a Uniform System for the Insurance Industry

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR) and the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) today announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to harmonize specific NIPR processes with existing ACORD Messaging Library data and message definitions in a major move toward improving the producer licensing and appointment processes.

NIPR's gateway between the insurance industry and state insurance regulators supports compliance activities such as licensing, appointments and state review. The current gateway messages fully support both request and response, including error processing for both life and non-life business.

By working together, ACORD and NIPR plan to streamline the overall process by mapping approximately nine proprietary NIPR transactions to the ACORD Messaging Library, a cross-domain messaging standard.

"The benefit for the insurance industry will be that producers can create NIPR transactions out of the same message elements they are using today to communicate with each other," said Maryellen Waggoner, Executive Director of NIPR. "This will make it easier to integrate NIPR messages into their systems, bringing us one step closer to a uniform system for the industry."

ACORD has automated producer licensing and appointment processes within its standards for the benefit of producers, insurers and solutions providers. Working with NIPR they will now develop standards for the exchange of information with state insurance regulators as well.

"ACORD's messaging has always benefited insurance producers and insurance companies," said Gregory A. Maciag, president and CEO of ACORD, "But now state insurance regulators will benefit from the utilization of these standards already prevalent across the industry."

To implement the partnership, ACORD will form a working group consisting of its members and representatives from the NIPR. The group will document the use cases related to the transactions, map the transactions and analyze the implementation of the messages. In the end, industry participants can implement the actual ACORD messages in a business environment to streamline the process.

For more information about the NIPR, please visit www.NIPR.com.

About NIPR

Incorporated in October 1996, the National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR) is a non-profit affiliate of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). NIPR developed and implemented the Producer Database (PDB) and Electronic Appointments/Terminations. NIPR is governed by a board of directors that includes seven members representing the NAIC and six industry members representing a cross-section of the insurance industry. For more information, visit www.NIPR.com.

CONTACT:
Monica Charleston
312-233-1317
monica.charleston@edelman.com

SOURCE National Insurance Producer Registry

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