A big STRIDE forward in short-term data sharing
Knowledge is power… A company leverages this power by ensuring accurate, complete and real-time access to customer information and transactional data at all times. The Short-Term Insurance Data Exchange (STRIDE) project will do just that, by providing a s
The lack of information sharing among short-term insurance providers and intermediaries has long been a topic of debate. Industry stakeholders have trumpeted the benefits of shared information on numerous occasions, including improved risk assessments, more accurate pricing, cost efficiencies and better customer service. But progress on a standard data sharing solution has been slow – until now.
STRIDE is a joint venture between the South African Insurance Association (SAIA) and the Financial Intermediaries Association (FIA) that will facilitate informed risk taking among stakeholders across the insurance value chain.The venture will achieve its goals by defining the “rules of engagement” for data and process interchange, and establishing an electronic connectivity capability based on a South African ACORD messaging standard and global best practices. (ACORD is an international insurance data standard).
STRIDE fires up!
The system will benefit both insurer and broker. STRIDE will make it easier for insurers to comply with regulatory requirements on holding and transacting client data. Each industry stakeholder will benefit thanks to savings in time, effort and cost. The system will allow for a single data capture event whereby a new customer could be captured once, the details held centrally, and then referenced repeatedly over time.
By adopting a data standard industry stakeholders will be able to share data with other parties and eventually reduce administration by facilitating electronic processes. A great deal of work has already taken place and STRIDE participants will be able to implement their data sharing initiatives from 20 April 2012.
A two phase implementation
The first phase of STRIDE will enable the sharing of information as per the legislative requirements in the Insurance Laws Amendments Act. This is focussed on enabling binder holders to provide copies of policy, claims and bordereaux information to insurers underwriting the specific risk and will go “live” from 20 April 2012.
The second phase is more extensive and will enable bidirectional messaging based on the ACORD model to provide straight through processing capabilities for all business processes in the short term insurance industry.This includes requests for quotations from one or more insurers, acceptance of the quotation and issuing of the policy, policy amendments and policy cancellation etc. The key enabler for this body of work is the STRIDE Switch.
Designing the STRIDE Switch
Work on the STRIDE Switch is ongoing.. It is now time for participating members to escalate their planning activities to be ready to communicate via the Switch by April 2012. To meet this deadline an internal project team should be established by no later than October 2011.
This team will have to make sure each of the following internal activities satisfy the STRIDE and/or ACORD requirements:
• Data extraction from legacy systems
• Batching of data
• Formatting of batches and creation of message envelopes
• Mapping of data
• Transmission of messages
• Receipt of messages
• Resubmission of messages
• Error message handling
• Receipt of data and processing into legacy systems.
Astute will make an implementation guide available to the industry during September 2011 (dependant on the acceptance of the technical specification) to enable participants to initiate their internal projects. Both Astute and STRIDE will be available to consult with participants.
