Industry Standards

In June of 2001, NAVA created the NAVA Technology Committee to identify, research, endorse and communicate technological directions for the benefit of the annuity and life insurance industry. Public notification was made of this initiative.The Technology Committee is working with NAVA’s Operations and Regulatory Affairs Committees on initiatives relating the straight-through processing (STP) of annuities.

In November of 2003, a strategy summit was hosted by NAVA with operations and IT executives from 30 companies in attendance. The goal was to create a consensus vision or blueprint on what STP would look like for the annuity industry. This blueprint would be shared with other trade groups and could be used by individual firms in prioritizing their development programs.

The blueprint was delivered to the industry in February of 2004. Click here for a copy .

There are several “enabling capabilities” that were identified as necessary. NAVA and its strategic partners in this endeavor have several working groups that are in the process of setting industry standards:

In 2005, LIMRA and NAVA jointly conducted a survey to assess the status of the annuity industry's standardization and STP developments. Click here for a copy of findings.

In 2006, the industry agreed to undertake an initiative to create a set of standards for doing electronic new business submission for annuities that includes e-signature and standard interpretations of all state and federal regulations – for which we get regulatory acceptance. An Executive Council was formed to spearhead the initiative. The 32 member companies that comprise the Council met in early March to set scope and approve the formation of two new NAVA working groups. To find out more about this project click here.