Gregory Maciag

Lloyd's Exchange Trade Fair

Lloyd's held a trade fair today for suppliers to demonstrate their products that connect to the Lloyd's Exchange. The Exchange is a network created by Lloyd's to facilitate messaging traffic between brokers and syndicates. It is now in pilot and all traffic is ACORD Standards compliant. 
Other organizations are using the network as well. It is primarily for Placing business at the present time with back office messaging being a future deliverable. We are doing a series of interviews in London this week with key executives to provide an update on the pilot and plans for the future. I will post a link to those videos when final.

PIA Visits ACORD London Office

The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) visited the ACORD office tin London today.  Keith Savino, hosted the group to discuss the role of data standards in the London Market specifically. Pictured are Beth Grossman, Keith Savino, Donna Pile, Greg Maciag, John Spalding, Robert Page, Ted Besesparis, Len Brevik, Phil Brown, Roy Laker, Brian Marino, Mark O'Connell. Len Brevik is the Executive Director of PIA and Robert Page is current President.

We spent five hours together with other invited guests to discuss progress and plans for using ACORD Standards.  Our goal is to work more closely with the PIA going forward on advocacy for ACORD Standards.  I want to thank Keith Savino and Beth Grossman for arranging this successful meeting. Here is one of the slide decks used by Roy Laker. ACORD PIA London  

London Market Leaders Make Resolution for Change

Here is a Lloyd's Press release announcing resolutions for the New Year. It's about process change.
2008 Resolutions

London Market Leaders Talk ACORD

We pride ourselves on reaching out to members on a regular basis and that includes many markets and geographies. Our meeting at Lloyd's of London last week was important to the ACORD Board of Directors. It provided them with the opportunity to talk to members, identify issues and discuss opportunities to improve ACORD services.

I will share some of the PowerPoint presentations with you and talk about some of the challenges we face in the weeks ahead.

And The Winner Is!

The 2007 Technological Award went to The Insurance Workplace. Standing with me are Warren Gunn, Technical Director, David Edwards, CEO and Brian Moore (former rugby champion). TIW developed an online document management system that enables both brokers and underwriters to participate in the A&S and ECF initiatives in the London Market.  TIW is ACORD DRI Standards (Document Repository & Interoperability) compliant.

Insurance Day Awards

The London Market likes to celebrate success and they deserve to do so.  While ACORD was honored on three separate occasions in the past, I will be pleased to present the Technological Initiative of the Year Award at tonights banquet.

Lloyd's of London Chief Executive Stresses Importance of ACORD Standards

Clem Booth, ACORD Chairman and Member of the Management Board of Allianz joined Richard Ward, Chief Executive of Lloyd's of London and I at a special Advisory Board Meeting in the Old Library at Lloyd's of London.  Mr. Ward spoke about the importance of ACORD Standards and Market Reform in his address delivered to key industry leaders. 

Dane Douetil on the London Market Reform

ACORD has been part of Market Reform in a very meaningful way for a number of years. Dane Douetil (center), Chief Executive of Brit Insurance and Chairman of the MRG (Market Reform Group) with Mike Smith (Lloyd's of London) talk about his tenure at the MRG.  Steve Matanle, Chairman & CEO of Marsh Global Markets and a Director of ACORD will replace Douetil in 2008.  Here is a video of Mr. Douetil talking about Reform. Douetil Video

London Forum Greets 500 Participants

Clem Booth (ACORD Chair and Member of the Management Board of Allianz) and I hosted the ACORD London Forum on October 17 and 18 attended by 500 industry participants in Gibson Hall.  We held a Forum back in 2005 and the responsiveness for the event continues to increase even though ACORD has now become a well known part of Market Reform.

Dennis Mahoney (Chairman of Aon Global) was our keynote speaker.  He spoke about the challenges we face as an industry and the need for better progress in automating the business. He stressed that e-failure will eliminate some players in the future. "They will be taken out" he said "unless they get on with it."

Peter Arbenz (Swiss Re) joined Clem and Dennis on the wrap-up panel on the closing day. The ACORD staff was hard at work in background, answering questions and providing updates.  But I love these events because the people on stage are ACORD members and industry observers and they are all talking about Standards and ACORD.

I will be posting more updates on London and you will soon see all the speakers and sessions on the ACORD website.

A Case For Compulsion?

Sometimes you do not have a choice. Contract Certainty, a major part of Market Reform in London was mandated by the FSA (Financial Services Authority) and it was largely accomplished. Now the question is whether or not organizations would mandate doing business electronically using industry standards.

While ACORD Standards are set and implemented voluntarily by members, there is precedent for mandating data standards in health insurance.  Regulators have been known to mandate data formats for filings and private organizations are now talking about it.  Lloyd's of London is focusing on process reform and has not ruled out mandating the use of ECF (Electronic Claim File)  if members fail to take up the streamlined system.  ECF uses the ACORD DRI (Document Repository & Interoperability) Standard.

Many ACORD members make decisions about suppliers (vendors) based on ACORD membership and ACORD Standards. And it is not uncommon to find ACORD compliance as a requirement in RFP's (Requests For Proposals). While everyone likes to believe that managers all understand the economic value of implementing industry standards, it requires committment and change. We are probably looking at a future where trading partners will seek out those that can more easily do business with them electronically and avoid those that do not.  In the end, the market itself will make industry standards compulsory.

ACORD London Advisory Board

I was in London last week and we convened our London Advisory Board.  Thirty senior business people from among the London insurance market came together to hear reports from ACORD on the state of plans for a variety of initiatives from the Global Placing Document to the new Testing and Certification Facility to the use of the ACORD London Market Roadmap. Participants shared their implementation activities from the broker and underwriter perspectives. Well received by the group was the summary goals and key target dates for London activities.

Clem Booth, Allianz; Steven Matanle, Marsh; and Steven Haasz, Lloyd’s, all members of the ACORD Board of Directors, shared their thoughts with me prior to that meeting. Here's the 18 minutes clip.

James to Depart Lloyd's

Julian James, director of worldwide markets at Lloyd's of London will leave Lloyd's at the end of April.  He was with Lloyd's for nine years and was responsible for all commercial activities outside the UK, including the management of its 72 trading licences. He will be going to Lockton International, a privately-owned U.S. based insurance brokerage, has grown its international business recently, buying the UK-based international risk services unit of Alexander Forbes. He worked closely with Lord Peter Levine, Chairman of Lloyd's and was very helpful to me in discussions on Asia-Pacific in particular. We wish him all the best.

Insurance Day Awards Dinner

I was pleased to present the Technological Innovation of the Year award to Crawford & Company (Center) as part of the Insurance Day Annual Awards Dinner at the Grosvenor House in London on December 7. With me is Bill Beaumont (Right).

Bill was a famous Rugby player for England (1975-1982). Pictured to the left during his playing days. I think he was open to the idea of leading ACORD implementation efforts. He has a "don't mess with me" kind of look, although he's a real nice chap.   Bill Beaumont