When you set up an account on a secure website, you've seen instructions on password creation, similar to these:

• Your password must be alphanumeric.

• It must be more than X number of characters.

• It must include/must not include special characters.

• It must include at least one number and one capital letter.

• It cannot be any of your last five passwords.

The rules by which passwords are created have grown so much more complex that many companies have emerged whose main product is password management, generating supposedly unbreakable ones of varying lengths with differing combinations of letters, numbers and special characters. Of course, they are locked away in a master vault behind yet another password.

ID Federation to the Rescue

For the insurance industry, an evolution in data security is taking place thanks to SignOn Once, a solution from the ID Federation, a nonprofit industry coalition formed in 2011.

The coalition, composed of carriers, vendors, industry associations and agencies, created a Trust Framework of rules that govern business, legal and technology use to provide secure access to multiple carrier platforms via the agency management system.