Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Introduction to the Property and Casualty Business and ACORD Forms

Introduction to the Property and Casualty Business and ACORD Forms.


In this article I’d like to talk about the property and casualty insurance business. This is the arena where you go to insure your personal property like your automobile, home, motorcycle, recreational vehicle or jewelry for instance. Also commercial businesses insure their property and a host of other things like worker compensation. Worker compensation is where the businesses insure themselves against on the job injury of their employees. They may also insure a fleet of vehicles, or inventory of their merchandise.

Then theirs a lot of certificates of insurance, insurance binders and notice forms that independent insurance agents use regularly. A certificate of insurance is proof that you actually have a valid current insurance policy with adequate coverage. A lien holder like a commercial bank may require a contractor for example to show evidence that they actually have the appropriate amount of coverage since the bank has a vested interest in the property. In the insurance business the bank would be referred to as a Holder.

Business must protect themselves from all kinds of dangers. If someone is injured while on their property they may be liable and are subject to claims filed against them. So they purchase insurance from an agent then the agent has to complete the appropriate forms to protect their business from law suits.

These ACORD forms are then sent to a carrier for submission. The carrier then process the forms to bind the policy, settle claims and such as that.

Each State in the United States of America has its own set of laws so theirs an appropriate ACORD forms that’s legal in each and every state. Some forms are standard across the country like the certificate of insurance form number 25 but others require their own version. For instance, the personal auto form number 90, there is one of them for every state due to the different laws in each state. Now you see why there are so many ACORD forms! It’s a daunting task to keep these forms current seeing how often the laws change.

Independent insurance agents all over the country must deal with a number of different items that they insure. In the industry that’s known as a risk. It’s really complicated and they have over seven hundred forms that they need when doing the paperwork on each item. For instance, when you insure your car the agent has to complete an application form then they need to print an auto id card. If you’re involved in an accident then they have to complete a claim form. So, you can imagine how many forms they have to keep track of. In fact they have a collection of over seven hundred forms at their disposal.

These forms are produced by a non profit organization called ACORD. They license their forms to software vendors for distribution to the agents. You can get more information by clicking on one of the links in this article; there you’ll find samples and instructions on how to complete the forms. Also, training videos are posted so it’s a great over all learning experience.

Forms Boss is the best software for managing ACORD forms.  Our program will track clients, prospects as well as create any one of over seven hundred ACORD forms.  We’ve automated the process to save time and money. Plus, it’s really simple and easy to use. 
Check us out by clicking here.

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