Anyone who’s spent at least half a day working in the insurance industry has probably seen the ACORD logo on a few documents.
For the uninitiated, the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD) is the non-profit organization in charge of setting and maintaining the data standards for the insurance industry globally. For at least four decades now, they have been the accreditation body providing the most-utilized standardized forms used by the majority of the insurance industry, including the all-important Certificates of Liability Insurance on your desk.
The Insurance Industry in One ACORD
During the 70s, need arose from insurance carriers and agents for eliminating inefficiencies in the US property casualty insurance market. This prompted Insurers across the country to form what was initially called Agent Company Operations Research and Development, a coalition originally designed to address the problem of different and conflicting form standards used by the industry. The new organization set forth to deal with this tall task within their original local scale, but ultimately proved so successful that it would grow to include insurance stakeholders outside the US.
Today, it has grown to what is now a group of 4000 companies-strong, engaging with more than 100 countries around the world. After more than 45 years of standard-setting for the Insurance industry, ACORD’s goals have expanded to cover nearly all facets of the insurance value chain, everywhere seeking to improve data quality and workflow, and ultimately to better efficiency for insurance stakeholders around the globe. Insurers, agents, brokers, even financial organizations and software providers have all benefitted from ACORD’s still-growing roster of tools and resources that continually help improve processes and data exchange across the board.
ACORD Forms and Data Exchange Best Practices
ACORD’s continued relevance today has a lot to do with the wide range of standardized forms that it provides to the global insurance industry. These forms are regularly evaluated, universally appropriated, and follow data exchange best practices for all relevant fields. In more ways than one, these forms increase efficiency by providing a common standard of documents that record and relate information in such a way that saves time, eliminates friction, and enhances productivity for those in the insurance value chain.
ACORD 25 and You
Perhaps the most relevant example of this to those in the compliance game is the ACORD 25 form, or the Certificate of Liability Insurance. Known in compliance circles simply as Certificate of Insurance (COI) or just “cert,” it’s a document released by Insurers to certify that an Insured is covered with a policy for a particular kind of risk. It also neatly summarizes the key details and provisions of the policy, although it’s no substitute for an actual policy.
Because ACORD 25 is widely used by organizations across the world, data exchange becomes a straightforward process. For one, it allows recipients to know what information to anticipate when receiving COIs, and likewise lets Insurers know which portions of policies need to be mentioned when issuing a COI for an Insured. This speed in data exchange is what ACORD meant by increasing efficiencies and, ultimately, savings for all parties involved.
Eliminate More Inefficiencies with COI Tracker
Next time you see an ACORD logo on your COIs, know that they’ve made your life immensely easier through their standard-setting. However – and as you may very well know – that doesn’t change the fact that you have a significant amount of paperwork ahead of you still if you’ve been tasked with compliance tracking. But that can change if you have COI Tracker to help you with the manual stuff.
COI Tracker has been carefully designed to respond and recognize ACORD forms to fully automate the recording and tabulation of data from COIs. Try COI Tracker for free today and get ready to see a whole new world of ease and efficiency for your compliance tracking.