What are trading partners?
Businesses that exchange data with each other are trading partners.

What types of clients can be served by Insurance Trading Partners?
Property & Casualty Insurers, Automobile Finance Companies, Mortgage Finance Companies, Insurance Tracking Firms and States' Departments of Motor Vehicle are the trading partners we serve.

What kinds of data do these trading partners exchange?
They exchange information about the status of insurance on a particular vehicle, property or person - depending upon their interest, the policy language and the laws that may be applicable.

How is the information used?
Lenders or their agents may use the data to administer compliance with their loan or lease agreements that the borrower secure and maintain adequate insurance on the collateral for the duration of the lender's financial interest. State DMVs may use the data to enforce mandatory liability laws or other legislated programs.

How is the information exchanged today?
The most common methods are also the most expensive: by mail and by telephone. Some trading partners use electronic methods. There are proprietary electronic formats and industry standards available.

How do you add value?
By presenting innovative, affordable and proven solutions, we help trading partners exchange data more efficiently and less expensively. Our experience helps clients implement solutions that give them a competitive edge.

What services do you offer?
Electronic insurance verifications and change requests, data entry outsourcing, specialized insurance notification collection, and EDI & XML consulting.

Do you advocate EDI and XML standards?
Yes. As a member of the Data Interchange Standards Association, we actively promote EDI standards, attend ANSI ASC X12 meetings and serve on various Work Groups. Our Policy Requests Online service supports X12 as well as ACORD XML Version 1.0 released in July 2001.

Where are you located?
We are located 17 miles north of downtown Dallas. Our address is 720 F Avenue, Suite 101 in Plano, Texas.

Why would an insurance company be interested in Policy Request Online?
Insurance companies receive requests to Policy Request Online or endorse loss payable, additional insured and mortgagee clauses by phone and through the mail. Their regional staff, home office staff and field agencies are required to assist lienholders, lessors and mortgagees with these requests since those companies have an insurable interest in the collateral. Insurance Trading Partners introduces a cost-effective alternative to the way insurance companies handle these third party requests.

Exactly how would an insurance company benefit from 'Policy Request Online'?
By receiving electronic requests through Insurance Trading Partners, the insurer is able to focus its highly paid, highly skilled personnel on others tasks which directly impact their sales and service objectives. They also are able to work more efficiently with the participating third parties and that helps everyone avoid miscommunication about a mutual customer's insurance status. This is a direct customer satisfaction benefit since fewer misunderstandings will lead to fewer - if any - unnecessary customer contacts from the lender.

What would prevent an insurance company from developing their own online solution?
A few insurance companies have already done this, in fact. But they are learning that maintaining such a system, administering user I.D.s and passwords and marketing the service to reach more trading partners is time-consuming and costly. A standard interface reliably administered would save them money and time and help them realize a greater volume of beneficial online transactions.

Why would a financial institution be interested in Policy Request Online?
Either directly or through an outsourcing firm called a tracker, financial institutions monitor their borrowers' compliance with the insurance requirements for their financed or leased vehicle or their mortgaged home. The prospect of having many different insurance companies participating in an online verification service would be attractive to financial institutions and their trackers.

Exactly how would a financial institution benefit from Policy Request Online?
A regular part of their insurance monitoring effort is verifying insurance with carriers or their agents. When it is done by telephone, it involves staff, equipment, long distance tolls and time for the initial call and any required follow-up if the agent is not available, for example. When requests are mailed, it takes paper and envelope stock, postage, equipment, staff and time in waiting for a response from the insurance company or agent. That response is usually in the form of another piece of paper that will need to be opened, sorted and data entered into the insurance tracking system to update the borrower's account. An online system greatly reduces their costs and delivers results in real-time or next day for batched requests.

What would prevent a financial institution from developing their own online solution?
They would need to individually negotiate the terms and formats with each insurance company. Development and testing would also need to be on a company-by-company basis. This would be time-consuming if it could be achieved at all since most insurance companies would likely not want to spend too much time developing a solution that would only serve one trading partner.

How secure is Policy Request Online?
With multiple layers of security in place, Policy Request Online will be more secure by several degrees over the current methods of verification and endorsement requests. For example, when insurance companies receive a phone call today to verify insurance, they can not authenticate the caller's identity or company affiliation. They rarely take the time to record the caller's phone number. Policy Request Online will ensure that only authorized employees at subscribed financial institutions or trackers are ever able to use the service. Data passed over the Internet will be encrypted while the site will issue certificates of authenticity to assure users that they have logged into a trusted site. Transaction histories will be available by operator and company for any recursive corrective action or quality control audits.