openIDS Work Group 4/10/25

-The press release and both white papers were sent out on Mon. 4/7; the group received solid feedback on the papers. Josh is using this material to kickstart conversations with MGAs and other organizations in his circle.

-Josh spoke with Accurate, and there may be a path forward involving them. It would emerge from an extensibility angle, but they deal with a lot of smaller companies from an actuarial service standpoint, so this could point to a viable opportunity.

-Josh also spoke with numerous smaller mutuals, such as Ohio Mutual, and a farming mutual, but it appears they are less interested; this may be outside of their comfort zone.

-Pursuing some of the larger and more sophisticated MGAs may therefore be the best path.

-A promising conversation also took place with Liberty Mutual, and they may be interested in being involved. Strategizing around the Liberty Mutual follow-up may be effective.

-Josh also spoke with Scott Grieco at The Hanover, which may be interested in becoming involved again given an adequate level of industry engagement.

-Michael and Rob of Cloverleaf have also been driving a conversation with Perr & Knight; there appears to be some opportunity and an avenue for collaboration here.

-Larger takeaways from all this: vendors on the actuarial side make sense; larger MGAs make sense; smaller mutuals, not so much.

-Rob Clark affirmed that Perr & Knight is interested in joining this effort with accompanying project and LF memberships and would love to help drive the effort forward. They are doing much work with stat reporting, actuarial analysis, etc.; they see this as an ideal opportunity, as they are looking for a way to get the data in a uniform format. They see this effort as a solution and an outstanding way to mitigate high cost.

-Rob also flagged the prospective interest of vendors such as GhostDraft and others, because this effort will make their lives and work so much easier - no more dealing with multiple formats to integrate and manage, in order to get the data.

-AAIS’s conclusion/takeaway: the policy admin system supporters such as Adaptify, that also may want to be involved.

-Josh has also spoken with Guidewire, which is interested in having the data standards on their platform to be leveraged. Michael Schwabrow noted that Cloverleaf is already deep in talks/negotiations with them, and has advocated openIDS standards to them as a way to dramatically aid their customers in data transformation and standardization; this will give the customers incredible ease and versatility and mobility of data.

-In terms of actuarial organizations: it was noted that if we’re talking about the data standards for stat reporting/regulatory reporting, that information may not be granular enough for the modeling that they want to do. There will be other data sources that they have, that they are now going to want to connect to the data that is in the openIDS framework. The concept of doing a lot of mapping or having keys to other datasets that they might have from proprietary data sources in their system ---- this will be key for orgs like Accurate. This is the long game.

-This turned out exceptionally well from a networking standpoint - many great opportunities emerged from it. The next step is to think strategically and determine next steps. One of AAIS’s action items was for AAIS’s marcomm dept. to send follow-up emails to all the attendees and vendors.

-A session took place at the Main Event regarding data standards collaboration with reThought and Cloverleaf, and Werner Kruck was involved.

-Josh advocated the selection of two co-chairs and opened this discussion up to the group.

-Jenny is interested in continuing to lead the OIDS group and suggested the selection of Rob Clark from Cloverleaf and one individual from reThought; Cory stated that this would likely be Catherine. He needs to speak with her and then circle back to everyone.

-The co-chairs will then meet with Sean Bohan prior to the first data standards working group on 4/21 to review logistics and process.

-Jenny and Josh emphasized that this meeting will include numerous external stakeholders from the Main Event and across the insurance industry. Josh is considering the idea of issuing a listen-only link so that numerous people can listen in without having to formally “sign up.” LFX guest sign-ins are also an option

 -White Papers 1 & 2 have been issued. This group still plans to have follow-up white paper case studies; the above bullet specifically relates to the release of those and the accompanying timeline. The target for the first case study - on regulatory reporting - is the end of May. This is essentially a summary of what the group learned from its Proof of Concept for that particular case study. The ETA for the second case study - on Bordereau Reporting - is late June; it hasn’t yet been formally started. 

Additional Thoughts from Group

It was stressed that as people get more and more involved, it will help to get them to deliver a consistent message across the industry. Could touch on the fact that our main competitors in this space are pay to play - and this is a major complaint within the industry. If you come to openIDS, it’s an open standard - no cost. This can be the central elevator pitch.

Per Michael: we have to be ready to roll as people become interested - so that there is no delay and interest doesn’t wane.

Per Sean: this is a consensus-driven process (driven by the working group) - timing has to be driven by the community - so the least desirable option is for LF leaders to say, “It will be ready by x date.” However when the release 1.0 is ready, we have to be ready to share it with folks and get others involved - and per Rob, confident enough that an immediate version overhaul is not imminent.

Sean: critical to think forward and avoid painting selves into a corner. Slow, steady, transparent, and backwards compatible are central to everything; so is group consensus before a release is issued.