UBL and Insurance

[Graham Leggett <minfrin@sharp.fm>]

Hi all,

I am currently looking at UBL and how it might be used to transfer data in the insurance industry. Has anyone attempted anything like this before?

The basic structure of insurance is that you have a contract with a set of counterparties (the policy), where the counterparties are the insured, the insurer, zero or more reinsurers, and a broker (possibly others). This policy contract in turn costs money (premiums), resulting in debit and credit notes. In terms of the policy, you have zero or more claims. These are conditional subcontracts, again involving counterparties (insured, insurer, reinsurer, surveyors, recoveries), which in turn also result in debit and credit notes.

How would something like the above map into UBL?

I imagine the process would start with a UBL Quote, which if accepted would result in a UBL Order. When the order is fulfilled, a UBL Contract is created representing the policy. Policies typically have many subsections, can a UBL Contract have lineitems/subsections? Debit and credit notes are raised to cover premiums.

Then a claim happens. What is a claim in a UBL world, another UBL Contract? How does a claim come to be? Credit and debit notes are raised to represent estimates and finally payments to the insured, as well as payments to suppliers like surveyors, etc.

Obviously there would be insurance specific fields, but UBL is extensible so this would make an ideal baseline.

Does the above thinking make sense?

Regards,
Graham
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