OLifE Team Tours Australia, New Zealand And South Africa
Representatives of 15 insurance companies and software vendors attended a July seminar in Wellington, New Zealand, sponsored by E-Z Data, a software provider and OlifE participant. The seminar provided ACORD an opportunity to develop its standard in a new region and to establish working groups to tailor the specification to local needs.
A week later, Sabatino facilitated the first official OLifE Australia Working Group in Melbourne. In a two-day session hosted by National Mutual, the 25 attendees were familiarized with the OLifE specification and the process of making changes to the specification. The group learned some of the different ways OLifE has been implemented, and applied the knowledge to their specific issues. The ACORD team reviewed Australian income protection information and investment product data and mapped these to the OLifE specification. Companies brought their data models to the working group; they offered additional requirements and asked questions about how their data would fit into OLifE.
"The working group identified the differences between our needs and those of current OLifE participants. The implementation of those 'local' enhancements will no doubt offer a better set of tools for our advisors," said Steve Kennedy, team leader, Advisor Workbench Development Team, National Mutual.
In addition, ACORD facilitated OLifE discussion groups in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. These half-day sessions, coordinated by Pacific Financial Systems, were designed to bring the industry up to date on OLifE Australia activities. The sessions, attended by more than 70 people, were open to all companies in Australia that have an interest in OLifE.
In August, the team presented two seminars on the OLifE object standard to South African audiences in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Similarly, the seminars explained the functionality of OLifE, discussed ACORD's role in the management of the standard and explored ways to move forward in forming a working group in South Africa.
The next Australia OLifE Working Group will be held in Sydney on September 28-29, hosted by Tower Life, Australia. ACORD OLifE training sessions have been scheduled for November 11-13 and 16-18 in Australia.