The insurance industry has been given a big technological boost from IBM.

The company has decided to donate some of its technology assets, including its Insurance Application Architecture (IAA) Business Object/Data Model and the IAA Product Specification Diagram (PSD) Notation, to help promote standardized business processes and models for the insurance industry.

The donated assets, which combine IBM hardware, software, and research, will be given to the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development (ACORD), a non-profit standards development organization that serves the insurance and financial services industries.

IAA is IBM’s insurance business and IT architecture framework. IBM continually develops IAA in collaboration with 100 leading insurance companies around the world. In fact, the IAA model has been licensed by more than 200 insurers worldwide.

The IAA Business Object/Data Model, in conjunction with the existing ACORD Information Model, will be the basis for the next version of the ACORD Information Model.

“IBM and ACORD show true thought leadership by combining the power of ACORD’s existing Information Model and their insurance industry information exchange standards, with the depth, flexibility, and operational richness of the IAA Business Object/Data Model,” said Michael Daugherty, president of the independent IBM Industry Models User’s Group (IMUG) and architect at Liberty Mutual Agency Markets Information Services.

IBM’s donation will propel the development and adoption of ACORD Framework, ACORD Messaging, and ACORD eForms.

“The ACORD Framework models will give insurers a flexible set of industry-developed assets to help accelerate the global adoption of key industry concepts,” said Mark Lewis, Global Insurance Industry General Manager at IBM. “Collaboratively aligning market-leading products such as IBM’s IAA with ACORD’s Framework will increase the value IAA can deliver to the industry and is consistent with IBM’s strategy of fostering open standards organizations to create growth and innovation.”