The Hartford Showcases SEMCI at Financial Tech Conference

The Hartford demonstrated its real-time rating and issuance of a complete, multi-line business owner's policy and a personal auto policy via SEMCI (single-entry, multi-carrier interface) at the Financial Technology Expo, held in New York this week.

This capability resulted from a partnership between The Hartford and Applied Systems, a vendor of insurance company and agency management systems, and Microsoft.

A pilot, involving a handful of The Hartford agencies, will start in December. The company expects the capability to be widely available for use by The Hartford's agents in 2000.

``Using XML technology and insurance industry standards, The Hartford has teamed with Applied Systems and Microsoft to create the technology that will provide agents with capabilities they've sought for 20 years,'' said Joseph Gauches, senior vice president, Electronic Marketing, Hartford Commercial. ``Once this technology is adopted uniformly by the industry, agency workflow will never be the same. Using their own agency management system, agents will be able to submit data, generate a quote and, in some cases, have a policy issued - all in the same on-line session.''

Gauches said the demonstration proves the concept of interactive SEMCI and validates the direction ACORD is taking with development of ACORD ObjX standards. ``This step marks the culmination of extensive research, dedication and hard work, all to fully enable SEMCI, using Internet technology as the pipeline for streamlined processing,'' he said.

ACORD is an industry-sponsored organization whose purpose is improving the computer processing of insurance transactions through independent agencies.

``By integrating real-time rating into SEMCI, this capability will fundamentally change -- and improve -- the way the insurance industry does business,'' said James Kellner, president and chief executive officer of Applied Systems.