Claim Accounting & Settlement, Broker & Insurer phase two

ACORD-standardised messaging, EBOT, will be available from phase two. In this scenario, the broker who is in phase two can trigger the premium accounting process via an EBOT message. This will trigger the separation of the technical account (TA) and financial account (FA). Insurers can opt to have a copy of the broker’s TA.

EBOT specifications can be found here. For both EBOT and ECOT, Velonetic (previously London Market Joint Ventures) will support a 2016 standard, and these will be reviewed over time and be part of market consultation. Anything prior to 2016-10 will not be supported.

Some fields used today do not exist in the EBOT message. The broker can provide these via API or submit them manually through the IPOS portal.

In the future, Velonetic will initiate settlement on any agreed claims, but the criterion of what constitutes an agreed claim changes. In phase two (i.e. in the EBOT process), a claim is considered agreed if it has the following 3 things: 

• agreed CMs (same condition as today and in phase one);

• agreed TA and

• agreed FA. 

This doesn't necessarily mean that there is an extra manual action on the broker to provide TA and FA, some broker systems already have an automated process in place for this.

The broker is expected to submit a claim at a fundamental level, as they do today and in phase one, and Velonetic will continue to break it down to non-fundamental level for Lloyd's reporting.

The Market Gateway (ASG Adept) will remain unchanged from phase one. All EBOT and API messaging will go through the Market Gateway (ASG Adept).

The broker is able to use the ICOS portal for TA and FA submission. As an alternative to the EBOT submission which triggers the accounting process.

ICOS is the new claims processing platform replacing ECF and CLASS. It will remain unchanged from phase one, although there will now be the option to interact with it via ECOT, EBOT and API.

Once the broker has adopted phase two and starts using the EBOT process, this will enable a higher level of automation of the Velonetic’s processes of accounting & settlement.

There is a new Step 2 in the Accounting & Settlement process for claims. This is because the broker is in phase two, so they have adopted the EBOT process, which has this additional Validation and Query step. If brokers are on phase one, then they would use the old manual process to submit claims to Velonetic and this step wouldn’t exist.

Both insurers and brokers (regardless of what phase they are in) will be able to submit, view and respond to queries via the ICOS portal, this will not change from phase one. In addition to that, things that can be done via EBOT & supplementary APIs can be done in the ICOS Portal.

In this scenario, brokers and insurers are in phase two and are able to view and respond to query messages via EBOT and API. EBOT specifications can be found here.

There will be supplementary APIs from ICOS, which will provide information which is not available in the EBOT messages, such as non-fundamental splits and actual payment date (APD). API specs are expected to be published in end Q1 - end Q2 2024.

API specifications were previously expected to be published between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024, but Velonetic will provide an updated schedule in Sep 2023. Some APIs have already been published and can be accessed on the ASG website. The API specification schedule, as well as instructions on how to access the API specifications currently available on the ASG website, can be found on the Blueprint Two website here: https://www.blueprint-2.com/technical-resources

Each organisation will have their own notification preferences, which will be unaffected by other organisations on the policy or claim. Therefore, an insurer who has selected EBOT and API as their notification preferences will only receive EBOT and API, even if other insurers on a policy use other formats.

A Velonetic technician will manually process the agreed Lloyd’s claim in order for it to go through to the settlement stage.

Claims netted settlement will still occur through Central Settlement. Central Settlement is not changing and will still work via STFO for Lloyd’s and via RBS for the company market.

It is expected that there will be no changes to Central Settlement bank accounts. Central Settlement is expected to work as it does today but with feeds from the new digital services rather than the existing ones.

Direct Settlement will remain unchanged from phase one.