This purpose of this website is to explore and illustrate the implementation of web services using the "REST" style of computer architecture. Currently there is one web service on this site that you can try. It is a service to provide an XML file containing all the county names for a given state along with the county FIPS (Federal Information Processing System) codes for each county. For an example of this service enter the following into your Web Browser's address line:
http://www.genericservices.com/countyfips/?state=ma
That should present you with an XML file with all the county names and fips codes for Massachusetts. Simply substitute the official 2-digit state abbreviation for any state in the United States for the last two characters above to get the county names and fips codes for that state.
If you enter just http://www.genericservices/countyfips/ without the ?state=ma to identify a specific state, you will get an XML file containing an error message. Try it out! If it's useful, go ahead and use it.
Single Entry, Multiple Company Interface (SEMCI) has long been a desired goal for most insurance agencies in the American independent agency system. A great deal of work has been done by many parties for more than 30 years to move the industry closer to that goal. One organization that has probably done more than any other to establish industry standards to enable the achievement of the SEMCI goal is ACORD Corporation.
For many years, ACORD has developed and provided standardized paper forms for use by insurance
agencies and companies. ACORD's AL3 standard provided a standardized data format which for
many years enabled insurance companies to exchance data electronically with the independent
agencies that represent them. Most independent insurance agencies who participate in this
electronic data exchange refer to its two major activities as "upload" and "download".
These data exchanges have helped to reduce redundant data entry considerably, but not completely.
More recently, ACORD's new XML based standard provides a more modern standard which is more
flexible and better able to meet the changing needs of the insurance industry.
Establishing standards is only a part of the solution, however, albeit a very substantial and vital part. To make SEMCI a reality, a significant number of insurance carriers must actually implement the standards. While most insurance carriers are members of ACORD, and support the development of these standards, most of them have not yet implemented these standards to the point required for true SEMCI. This website will also explore and illustrate how the ACORD XML standard can be implemented using web services to allow independent agencies to enter a property & casualty insurance application just once, and then submit that application to multiple insurance carriers.
This site is currently being developed. Check back periodically, if you are interested, to see it expand.