Combined Offerings Enable Real-Time Acord XML Transactions Between Agents and Carriers
New Haven, Conn.
June 2, 2003 — Metaserver, Inc., a developer of business process integration (BPI) software, today announced it has entered into a strategic partnership agreement with IVANS Insurance E-Commerce Solutions, a division of IVANS, Inc.
Under the terms of the agreement, Metaserver and IVANS will engage in joint selling and marketing activities and offer a complete, packaged solution to help property and casualty carriers fulfill real-time requests from independent agents. These requests include new business transactions such as homeowners and auto quoting and new policy issuance, as well as first notice of loss, claims inquiry, billing inquiry, and other personal and commercial lines transactions supported by ACORD XML.
The IVANS-Metaserver offering is one of the first packaged solutions geared towards enabling real-time, round-trip transactions between carriers and agents. The combined solution also supports the insurance industry’s SEMCI (Single Entry Multiple Company Interface) goals for eliminating duplicate data entry between independent agents and P&C insurers, and the implementation of ACORD XML to facilitate the processing of transactions in real-time.
Metaserver and IVANS have agreed to combine their core technologies, which include Metaserver 4 along with IVANS Transformation Station(TM) and Transformation Xpress(TM). The packaged solution will feature pre-defined business processes to map ACORD XML transactions to business applications, pre-loaded ACORD XML data definitions, point-and-click connectors to access legacy applications and other back-office systems, and data transformation capabilities for XML, AL3, and other proprietary and standards-based data formats. The solution includes services to help customers get up and running on their carrier-agency integration efforts, such as pre-configured connectivity to IVANS Transformation Station to allow rapid rollout of an IVANS Destination Station. IVANS Transformation Station is an Internet data exchange using Web services and ACORD XML for real-time transactions between agency and carrier systems.
“Insurance carriers are looking for one combined solution to reach their agents and respond to transactions from many back-end systems,” said Anna England, Vice President and General Manager of IVANS Insurance E-Commerce Solutions Division. “Combining IVANS Transformation Station and IVANS ACORD translation software and expertise, with Metaserver’s back-end integration capabilities, provides carriers with an affordable and one-stop-shop solution to reach their goal.”
According to Metaserver’s CEO Richard Schultz, carriers face two major challenges as they attempt to enable real-time SEMCI. The first is receiving transactions from agency management systems and transforming the data into the ACORD XML standard. The second involves passing the data to the policy administration systems, rating systems, and other critical legacy applications that were not originally designed to handle the ACORD XML data format.
“IVANS quickly and efficiently tackles the first challenge,” explained Schultz, “and Metaserver does the same for the back-end integration problem. Our solution will give carriers a huge competitive edge because they can take maximum advantage of existing business applications. At the same time, agents will be able to conduct business with multiple carriers using their current management system. These combined capabilities are the key to enabling real-time, round-trip transactions between carriers and agents.”
Providence Washington Insurance Companies, a customer of IVANS and Metaserver, recently became one of the first carriers to put into production a solution that takes advantage of both companies’ innovative technologies. The Rhode Island-based company currently supports four real-time ACORD XML personal line transactions: homeowner quotes, homeowner new issuance, auto quotes and auto new issuance. Providence Washington already has realized significant benefits from the combined Metaserver-IVANS functionality and plans to use it for several upcoming initiatives, including a number of commercial lines integration projects.
About Metaserver, Inc.
Metaserver’s business process integration (BPI) solution lets companies automate processes and create applications that include data and functionality from incompatible systems and data sources. Insurance carriers use Metaserver to tackle carrier-agency integration, customer 360 initiatives and other critical business problems. Traditional approaches give you infrastructure overhauls, steep learning curves and months of development. Metaserver gives you business process integration NOW.
Metaserver, Inc. is based in New Haven, Conn. and can be reached at 877-789-8090.
About IVANS, Inc.
IVANS Insurance E-Commerce Solutions, a division of IVANS, Inc. (www.ivans.com), is a provider of unique application and exchange-based solutions and services for the insurance industry. Products and services leverage expertise in insurance workflows, ACORD and X12 standards, data translation, edit development and execution, and unique data capture for insurers, using both EDI and real-time communications.
