Industry Standards
Alliances

NAVA has sought to forge relationships with other organizations in the creation and adoption of standards and best practices that are necessary to enable the straight-through processing of annuities. In addition to the ones listed below, NAVA is in dialog with other trade groups to form similar alliances.

ACORD - As NAVA is not a standards organization, the Committee sought the expertise of ACORD, a recognized standards-setting organization for the insurance industry. In November of 2001, NAVA and ACORD entered into an agreement to work together to develop XML-based standards for the annuity industry. ACORD will ensure that these standards are open standards in the public domain and available. In 2003, that agreement extended to cover the development of standard annuity forms.

SPeRS - NAVA formed an alliance in 2003 with SPeRS (Standards and Procedures for Electronic Records and Signatures), a financial services industry consortium, that has developed a set of guidelines, procedures, checklists and strategies for developing systems to create, deliver, sign, manage and transfer legally enforceable electronic records and signatures in commercial and consumer transactions. NAVA recommends to all of its members to adopt the SPeRS methodology in implementing electronic signatures.

SIA - In 2005, NAVA entered into a strategic alliance with the Securities Industry Association (SIA). The focus of this relationship being the process simplification and standardization, regulatory change, and industry buy-in and adoption that are necessary for annuity STP to become a reality. SIA and NAVA members have agreed to work in concert with one another to maximize those opportunities. This alliance should encompass the implementation of the STP roadmap in its entirety, both new business and post-issue processing, and evolve with the priorities of SIA and NAVA member companies. The SIA issued an advocacy letter in August 2005 outlining the automation projects for which it encourages adoption. For a copy of this letter, click here.