Press Room
Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | January 14, 2002
CONTACT: Deborah Tucker, (703) 707-8830 ext. 15 or dtucker@navanet.org

NAVA and ACORD Join Forces for Annuity Standards

Reston, VA, January 14, 2002 - NAVA, the leading trade association for the variable annuity industry, and the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD), the leading standards organization for the insurance industry, announced today that they would work together to develop XML-based standards for the annuity industry.

The relationship will benefit members of both organizations as well as the broader financial services industry in the development and use of standards. The partnership will have NAVA coordinate and develop requirements and priorities for annuity standards through the efforts of its Technology Committee. This committee will make the information available to ACORD for inclusion in their standards setting processes. ACORD will ensure that these standards are open standards in the public domain and available to anyone free of charge no matter what their affiliation with ACORD or NAVA.

"The standardization initiative within the annuity industry is something that our members felt was important enough that it expanded the scope of NAVA’s mission to spearhead these initiatives," noted Mark Mackey, President and CEO of NAVA. "We now have over 100 participating members on our Technology Committee - comprised of insurers, brokers/dealers, asset managers, and service providers - working together to set uniform data exchange requirements in the sale and processing of annuities. The acceptance and adoption of these ACORD/NAVA standards will over time have a tremendous impact on our industry."

"The annuity industry is such an integral part of financial services. Being able to further the standardization efforts begun by ACORD through the involvement of the industry expertise from NAVA will add another dimension to the growth of standards in support of the insurance and financial services markets," said Gregory Maciag, President and CEO of ACORD. "We are very pleased to be working with NAVA on this important initiative."

NAVA is a non-profit trade association located in suburban Washington D.C. The association provides a variety of services to the industry including educational forums, research, conferences, and lobbying activities aimed at furthering the development of fixed and variable annuities, income annuities and variable life insurance. Founded in 1991, NAVA has a broad-based constituency, with over 350 members representing over 98 percent of the industry. Additional information is available at www.navanet.org. NAVA also maintains and supports an educational website for consumers at www.RetireOnYourTerms.com.

ACORD is a global, nonprofit insurance association whose mission is to facilitate the development and use of standards for the insurance, reinsurance and related financial services industries. With offices in New York, London and Brussels, ACORD accomplishes its mission by remaining an objective, independent advocate for sharing information among diverse platforms. ACORD standards and services improve efficiency and expand market reach. Affiliated with ACORD are thousands of insurance and reinsurance companies, agents and brokers, related financial services organizations, software providers, and industry organizations worldwide. Additional information is available at www.acord.org.