Brokers case study

In 2006, Aon UK Ltd. decided to grow its electronic trading strategy for business transacted in London. Aon was looking for a way to build a consistent front-office process for its broking teams, to record the full placement process and have the audit trail of their transactions. By capturing underwriter lines electronically, Aon also wanted to update their back-office systems without the need for keying or distributing paper.

Aon had already invested in their own contract solution and CRM tool known as ConCert, which manages client risk requirements and contract compliance. Aon wanted to find a way to create the contracts using the ConCert application, to distribute their contracts electronically to their selected carriers, and to manage the full placement lifecycle – all without the use of email and through the evolution of ACORD standards.

Qatarlyst (then RI3K) and Aon developed an interface between ConCert and Qatarlyst e-placement service, using the ACORD quotation request message. This integration meant that the Marketplace would be able to receive copies of the ConCert contract, client data and copies of underwriting documentation from the ConCert application. Aon brokers then access their own broking areas in the Marketplace, select their markets and distribute the risk information electronically.

Underwriters have the choice about how to access Aon’s data. The virtual underwriting service allows them access either through a web browser where they can manage their quotes and written lines or they can access the data within their own underwriter applications. Either way, all the negotiations and actions between the broker and underwriters are recorded and kept within an electronic placement file along with the contract and the supporting information.

Once the contract is ready to be bound between Aon brokers and their markets, binding and signing down processes are handled by Qatarlyst. The contract data and underwriter line sizes are available as an ACORD message. With an easy integration between the Qatarlyst and back-office systems, this information can be captured at the point of transaction by both Aon and the underwriting systems for further processing.

This placing process allowed Aon to achieve its goals of risk distribution, compliant trading and also straight through processing from the point of contract creation to the processing of the signed contract data. Aon and Qatarlyst were jointly awarded the ACORD Industry Thought Leadership award for the project.

Technical Specifications:

Aon provides the following ACORD XML Messages from their Concert System to Qatarlyst:

At quotation stage, an ACORD quotation_request Placing Message and ACORD Document Repository Interface (DRI) Messages for the Contract Document. This will create / update a programme and layer in Qatarlyst and allow Aon brokers to login to Qatarlyst and request a quote on that risk.

At the firm order stage, an ACORD request_for_line_or_binder Placing Message and ACORD Document Repository Interface (DRI) Messages for the Contract Document. This will allow Aon brokers to login to the Marketplace and request a firm order on that risk.

The DRI Messages are based on the following:

  1. Aon provides references and metadata details of their Contract Document in the Placing Message. This is sometimes referred to as DRI slice(s) in the Placing Message.
  2. Qatarlyst sends Aon an ACORD DRI RepositoryOperationRq Message to request the Contract Document.
  3. Aon responds with an ACORD DRI RepositoryOperationRs Message with the related Contract Document in Rich Text Format (RTF).
  4. When the Placing Message and all DRI Messages have been exchanged, Qatarlyst send Aon an ACORD Acknowledgement Message to confirm successful receipt of all Messages or report any errors.

The Messages sent and received with Aon use the following ACORD standards:

  1. ACORD SOAP Message Standards 1.4.0
  2. ACORD Placing Message Standards 2009-1
  3. ACORD DRI Message Standards 1.2.0