The business of insurance is the process of converting conversations into contracts. This is most obvious in markets like Lloyds, where you can see and hear the process in action. It's also true of the more commoditized areas of the industry, where products and policies encapsulate engagements with customers.
This fundamental process also describes the
activity of standards creation. At ACORD, we get people together to discuss
their needs relating to data storage, exchange, and analysis. The results of
the conversations are captured in the standards themselves.
The pattern then repeats at the technology level – but this time in reverse. Data standards act as contracts between systems. Systems can then converse effectively and efficiently with each other. Data standards are, literally and metaphorically, the “policies” of a data communication system. We need them in the same way we need products at the business level.
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