Software AG Offers Help to Insurance Industry

Software AG Inc. on Tuesday announced a new XML-based solution for the financial services industry.

Reston, Va.-based Software AG Inc., a subsidiary of Software AG, Europes largest systems software provider, rolled out its XML-based solution, called SAGe Insurance.

SAGe Insurance combines Software AGs expertise (SAGe) in the insurance industry with the companys EntireX XML Mediator tool.

Software AG made its announcement at the 2002 ACORD Conference, in Orlando, Fla. ACORD is the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, and is a leading standards organization for the insurance industry, Software AG officials said. Software AG also said Tuesday that it had joined ACORD.

The SAGe Insurance system is designed to reduce IT costs and time required to implement ACORD XML standards for exchanging information among institutions, sales channels and trading partners, the company said.

EntireX XML Mediator, the base of the SAGe Insurance tool, provides technology that is capable of receiving ACORD XML documents from any source and using a complex rules base to determine how each document should be processed and translated into a set of XML and non-XML messages, the company said. The documents are then routed in their entirety, or in relevant sections as defined by the organizations business rules, to the appropriate internal or external systems.

The need for XML support will continue to grow in the financial services industry. According to ZapThink LLC, a Waltham, Mass., research firm focused specifically on XML, the financial services industry will invest $985 million on XML technologies in 2002. By 2005, this investment will grow to more than $8.3 billion.