Insurance data standards association ACORD Corporation (www.acord.org) and Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) today announced that ACORD has selected Progress DataXtend Semantic Integrator (SI) as its mapping and schema generation development environment for the ACORD Standards Framework.

The ACORD Standards Framework (including its Information Model) forms the foundation of an ACORD Enterprise Architecture. This will be used to generate future versions of ACORD standards from a common model across all lines of insurance. Insurance carriers will benefit from the consistency and robustness of a broader and common set of ACORD deliverables.

The Information Model will allow them to:

• Harmonize information across all disparate insurance domains with a single conceptual model that spans lines of business, geography and product offers
• Enable their own standards-based enterprise architecture

ACORD will be able to quickly define and publish unambiguous maps between the new ACORD Information Model and its existing Property/Casualty/Surety, Life/Health/Annuities, and Reinsurance/Large Commercial XML standards using the common-model-based approach of DataXtend SI while integrating complex metadata. Additionally, this will enable ACORD members to take advantage of their existing investment in ACORD standards while embracing the new Standards Framework.

"We selected Progress Software's solution because of its visual, metadata-driven approach to mapping complex models and schemas," said Frank Neugebauer, Assistant Vice President of Technology, ACORD. "DataXtend SI is well suited to support the highly complex mappings and schema generation we and our members require. Evolving our existing standards development process with the ACORD Standards Framework gives us the opportunity to improve the quality and comprehensiveness of our deliverables to our members, and DataXtend SI is an important part of that evolution."

"ACORD is committed to delivering increasing value to its membership and the Standards Framework is critical to our achieving this objective. I am extremely pleased to have the support of Progress Software. Their technology and experience with common model-based standards initiatives will benefit both ACORD and our members," says John Kellington, Senior Vice President, ACORD.

"The ACORD Standards Framework initiative will provide significant improvements for anyone using ACORD standards," says Ken Rugg, vice president and general manager, DataXtend at Progress Software. "We've seen the benefits of using a similar set of standards - the TM Forum's Information Framework - in the telecom industry, and we're looking forward to seeing these successes replicated in the insurance industry."