Commercial insurance brokers are about to have standards for policy inquiries for certain auto and general liability coverages.

The Center for the Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO) said its API Working Groups on Innovation and Emerging Technologies (INNOTECH) have published Application Programming Interface (API) standards using Java Script Object Notation (JSON) for Individually Assessed Commercial (IRCA) and Commercial Vehicles. general liability (GLL) policy inquiries.

This is the first release of an industry API standard in JSON format (the preferred API digital standard format) for commercial lines.

The changes will facilitate the exchange of information between brokers’ and insurers’ systems regarding IRCA and CGL policies, with the aim of saving time and effort for both parties. CSIO said real-time inter-system data exchange will benefit brokers, insurers and customers.

“One of the key benefits of JSON API standards is the ease with which they can integrate with insurance systems compared to other API standards formats,” said Kathryn Curran, vice president of platforms at personal insurance at Economical Insurance and member of the INNOTECH advisory committee.

When a vendor and insurer partner places the JSON API standards in their systems, brokers will no longer need to use an insurer’s portal to access customer policy information. They also won’t have to call the insurer directly.

The release of this latest set of policy investigation standards means the INNOTECH API Working Groups have “established the fundamental use case of JSON-formatted trading lines for the API,” CSIO said. in a press release.

The new standards can be viewed on the CSIO website.

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