The Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) held their second implementation conference last week, and prevalent themes revolved around cost reductions; cycle time and outcome improvements; data ownership; and information privacy.

CIECA is comprised of members from all collision industry segments who form member-run committees that develop national industry standards and provide implementation support and guidelines for electronic commerce. Below is a recap of the conference:

General Session Recaps

Randy Hanson, auto claim director at Allstate, opened the conference with "CSI Standards and Standard Questions," sharing the specific value of standardization to his company and the industry in this latest area of CIECA standards development. Overall business process information and process simplification, access to real-time decisioning information, freedom to use best-in-class services from multiple vendors and service, and cost improvements were highlighted.

Ron Campney and Mike Stewart represented the Hertz Off-Airport business unit, whose markets include insurance replacement rental. They described their company's experience in implementing CIECA standards, in which they have been deeply involved since the beginning. Hertz has completed the migration from the Estimate Management Standard (EMS) to the Business Messaging Specification (BMS) standard and has implemented BMS rental messaging services with all of their trading partners. Secure data and information exchange and a marked reduction in rental duration -- which drives customer cost and satisfaction -- were two important benefits highlighted.

A panel discussion entitled "Direct Insurer-Repair Facility Exchanges," featured senior executives from CynCast, Safelite Glass, State Farm, and AutoWatch. While there was general agreement that estimatics software plays a critical and valuable role in the repair and communication process between insurers and repairers, the panel addressed growing concerns about the complex issues around safeguarding private and personal information exchanged and captured in the process, including any associated liability that may exist for all parties. These concerns extend to other vehicle information and damage history data providers.

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Representatives from Audatex/Solera and Mitchell International described "Insurance Company Estimate Message Implementation: BMS for Estimating." Both companies have been long-time supporters and active participants in CIECA, and have invested heavily in CIECA BMS standards implementations with insurance clients that have expanded to support business transactions with other supply chain service standards. Both companies also support numerous other data formats as well as connectivity and transmission protocols.

Don Porter, consultant for P&C claims with State Farm, spoke on " Salvage Disposition Assignment & Status Updates." As a businessman and not a technologist, Porter used the heavily detailed workflows and many of the 120 individual BMS messages to convey not only how complex the underlying process is, but also how much BMS standardization has simplified the process for all users, both internally and externally.

The closing segment was a Town Hall entitled "Why CIECA BMS Adoption Matters to the Collision Repair Supply Chain." It included presentations by Amica Insurance, CCC Information Services, Discount Car Rental, Gerber Collision and Glass and LKQ Corporation. Collectively and generically, these companies represent the majority of the collision repair supply chain that exchange more than 200 million electronic transactions worth $100 billion annually.

Each presenter explained exactly how CIECA BMS has benefited their companies and their business relationships within other supply chain participants, including cost and time to market savings and data security. Once again, data ownership and information privacy was addressed, along with the role of CIECA BMS in alleviating those concerns.

stephen.applebaum@gmail.com, www.insuranceclaimsolutions.com.

Special Reports /

Conference Recap: CIECA 2.0 Implementation

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