CLIEDIS History

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In 1995, a group was founded by a number of Canadian life insurance companies and the co-operation of key brokers who were interested in the development of standardized Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) in Canada. This group became known as CLIEDIS, Canadian Life Insurance Electronic Data Interchange Standards. The initial focus was on communication between head offices and the field.

CLIEDIS was founded to develop standards that would support the exchange of business information between producers and the various Head Offices and to facilitate servicing of clients. In 1996, CLIEDIS began publishing ANSI Implementation Guides for its members.

As an advocate of standards, CLIEDIS began hosting seminars in 1999. It has provided the association with a forum for reinforcing the CLIEDIS message and given members an opportunity to network with others in the life insurance industry interested in standards solutions.

In December 2000, the membership voted unanimously to form a partnership with ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development). ACORD, based in Pearl River, New York, develops data standards for the insurance and financial services industries; standards that are being used worldwide. CLIEDIS and ACORD continue a close working relationship and CLIEDIS represents Canadian interests on the ACORD Life Steering Committee.

In 2001, CLIEDIS began to provide XML for Life and Data Modeling training for its members in support of its strategy to make the use of the ACORD XML for Life standards more widespread. CLIEDIS continues to provide training that meets the needs of its membership.

The Standards Review Committee (SRC) was formed in 2002. The SRC provided a forum for technical discussions and is now an active technical community that shares lessons and experiences. The SRC develops and reviews best practices and implementation guidelines for the Canadian industry.

In 2005, CLIEDIS released CAIR, an on-line standards implementation resource tool. CAIR was developed to assist with the collaborative efforts between members of CLIEDIS' Standards Review Committee (SRC). CAIR documents and provides discussion forums that support the implementation of ACORD's XML for Life data standards in the Canadian marketplace.

In 2006, CLIEDIS took a leadership role in CITS (Canadian Insurance Transaction Standardization), a project that was initiated by distributors wanting to provide a single strong voice to carriers in the development of data standards within the Canadian life insurance industry. The first implementation guide developed by CITS participants was for pending case feeds from carriers to distributors. This project brought business partners in the industry together to set up a "standard" for what should be in this pending feed. Guides have been developed for inforce feeds and product description feeds.

CLIEDIS has done a number of surveys over the years to track the use of data standards in the Canadian life insurance industry. These surveys indicate increased interest and use of data standards to improve the efficiency of doing business in the Canadian marketplace.