A#

5687

P&S #:

5257
   

DATE:

October 2, 2003
   

TO:

ALL PARTICIPANTS
   

ATTENTION:

MANAGERS; OPERATIONS DEPT FOR ANNUITIES & LIFE INSURANCE, BROKERAGE OPERATIONS, INFORMATION SYSTEMS, COMMISSIONS DEPT & LICENSING DEPT
   

FROM:

 DTCC Insurance Services
   
SUBJECT: IPS Fall 2003 Enhancement Release

Overview:

In order to support industry requests, the Insurance Processing Service (IPS) has scheduled an enhancement release for Fall 2003. IPS Enhancement Releases include Advisory Group Enhancement Requests submitted by participants, as well as maintenance items National Securities Clearing Corporation (“NSCC”) deems necessary to improve the overall operational performance of the system.

The enhancements in the Fall 2003 release will affect the following functionalities:

·        Commissions (COM)

Schedule:

·        Test Region – November 7, 2003 starting at 2 P.M. EST.

·        Production Region – December 5, 2003 starting at 11:30 A.M. EST. for Commissions (COM) and starting at 1 P.M. EST for Licensing and Appointments (L&A)

Times are subject to change.

Participants may begin testing the changes via the test region starting November 7, 2003.

·        However, for the period of November 7, 2003 through and including December 5, 2003, participants must continue to use the old formats in the production system.  The changes will be implemented into production on December 5, 2003 after 11:30 A.M. EST for Commissions (COM) and after at 1 P.M. EST for Licensing and Appointments (L&A). 

Any COM production file sent prior to 11:30 A.M. EST on December 5th must be sent in the old format. Any COM production file sent in after 11:30 A.M. EST must be in the new format. 

Any L&A production file sent prior to 1 P.M. EST on December 5th must be sent in the old format. Any L&A production file sent in after 1 P.M. EST must be in the new format. 

Draft Record Layouts:

To view the draft record layouts, log on to our website at http://insurance.dtcc.com. Go to "Participants Section ® Record Layouts" and you will see "Draft Record Layouts".  Click on the arrow and you will find a list that includes a Detailed Specifications document, along with Draft Record Layouts, to be used for programming.  Also, check the Update Log periodically for any minor documentation changes. 

The following record layouts will be listed.  All changes to the documentation will be highlighted in yellow. 

Detailed Specifications

The following information indicates the exact changes made to the record layouts, and is covered in the Fall Release 2003 Detailed Specifications Document located on our website.  This document should be used along with the draft record layouts as your guide to programming. 

These changes are based on the approved recommendation made by the originator of the enhancement request. 

The actual enhancement request can be found at our website under “Enhancements” in the Participants Section of our website.  Do not use the actual Enhancement Requests to program.  The draft record layouts and detailed specification document should be used for this purpose.  The original enhancement request forms are provided to understand the business purpose of the change.

Commissions (COM)

1.      COM – Expansion of COM Record Layouts and addition of Split Commission fields (IPS00038)

Mandatory programming changes are required – IPS highly recommends that all COM users test this enhancement.  Testing must be coordinated between trading partners.

Commissions will now be able to support the use of split agent and team commission reporting.  Carriers will be able to indicate to its Distributors, the exact percent and/or dollar amount payable to multiple agents in a commission transaction.  See the “Suggested Standardized Usage for Communicating Split Commission Payments / Team Business via IPS” document for more information.

NSCC layout changes:

1.      All Commission records will expand from 200 bytes to 300 bytes.  This includes records:

20, 21, 22-01, 22-02, 22-03, 22-04 & 22-05

The outbound reject code field currently at bytes 189 to 200 will move to bytes 289 to 300.  Bytes 189 to 200 will be replaced with filler. 

Note:

The reject code field can only be populated by IPS, when edit rejects occur.  Only Carriers will ever see this field populated. 

·        Carriers will need to adjust accordingly to receive the reject code(s) in this new location when reject files are received.  

·        Distributors should not be impacted by this change.

2.      The following new fields will be added to the 22-05 record:

·        Recipient Commission Amount (Bytes 201 to 216).  This will be a 16 byte optional numeric field.  If this field is not used, than zero fill is required.   

Example - $5,000.00 = 0000000000500000

Note:

Carriers upon submission, must default zeros in this field, when not used.

Distributors, upon receipt, must be prepared to receive zeros in these new fields, when not used.

·        Recipient Commission Amount Debit/Credit Qualifier (Byte 217).  This will be an optional/conditional alphanumeric field.  If the Recipient Commission Amount is filled, then the qualifier is mandatory.  If the Recipient Commission Amount is filled with zeroes, then the qualifier should be spaces. 

The following codes will apply:

1 = Debit – this is used for Carrier Commission Chargebacks

2 = Credit – this is used for Carrier Commission Payments

·        Recipient Commission Percentage (bytes 218 to 227).  This will be an optional numeric field.  If this field is not used, than zero fill is required. 

Examples – 35% = 0350000000, 100% = 1000000000

Note:

IPS will not validate that all multiple 22-05 records equal 100%. 

Carriers upon submission, must default zeros in this field, when not used.

Distributors, upon receipt, must be prepared to receive zeros in these new fields, when not used.

Code List Additions:

·        The following code will be added to the Recipient Role Code List, Item 2410

TM = Team

This code is missing from the current list.  To be consistent across product lines, this code being added to give the ability to distinguish between agents part of a team vs. agents who are splitting commissions, but not set up as a team. 

ANSI layout:

The 200 to 300 byte COM expansion does not impact ANSI. 

The three new fields listed above, will be added to the NM1-110 segment.  See the ANSI COM draft record layouts for exact specifications.

 

 

Licensing & Appointments

1.      L&A – Add Long Term Care information to License LOA record (IPS00110) – mandatory programming changes are required for Course Credit Hours (bytes 116 to 117).  Since this is a numeric field, a zero fill is required if field is not used and the 53-12 record is sent.

In order to process L&A for LTC, additional course certification information is needed at the License Line of Authority level.

The following optional fields will be added to the 53-12 record:

Start

End

Length

Type

Field Name

58

97

40

A/N

Course Title

98

107

10

A/N

Course Certification Number

108

115

8

D

Course Completion Date

116

117

2

N

Course Credit Hours

118

157

40

A/N

Course Provider Name

158

167

10

A/N

Course Provider Certification Number

All fields will be optional across available transaction types.

2.      L&A – Allow Carrier to reject IC and AD transaction types (IPS00114)

Currently, a Carrier cannot use the reject status code to communicate back to a Distributor that an IC or AD transaction was not processed.  The following change will allow this to occur:

On the Producer Entity record (53-01), IPS will now allow a Carrier to input the RJ (Rejected) code in the Transaction Status field (Item 6104) for Transaction Types (Item 6102) IC (Identification Number Change) and AD (Address Change).

Note:

No programming changes would be required for those firms that do not wish to utilize this capability.

3.      L&A – Using LC for Renewal Confirmations (IPS00115)

Currently, LC transactions are used by Distributors to confirm back to Carriers a change of license status.  Currently, there is no code available that would allow Distributors to indicate that the license was updated due to a Renewal.

A code will be added to the Status Reason Code list to indicate a renewal reason. 

The following new code will be added to L&A Code List 6552:

RN = Renewal

4.      L&A – Link Address and Communications Records (IPS00119)

Currently, the Address Record (53-05) and the Communication Record (53-05) loop at the same level.  Based on this structure, the ability to link a particular communication record to a particular address record is difficult.  This field will be used as a pointer to link to relate these records.

The following change will be made to allow firms to indicate to their trading partners which records are related.

Changes:

53-04 Record – Producer Address Record

Add “Address/Communication Sequence Number” field to bytes 196 to 197.  This will replace filler.  The field will be an optional alphanumeric field.  If not used, fill with spaces. 

53-05 Record – Producer Communication Record

Add “Address/Communication Sequence Number” field to bytes 133 to 134.  This will replace filler.  The field will be an optional alphanumeric field.  If not used, fill with spaces. 

Example of how this may be used:

In this example, there are 2 address records and 3 communication records.  The first two communication records are affiliated with the first address record.  The third communications record is affiliated with the second address record.

This is how the looping structure would look:

Record

Sequence Number

53-04

01

53-04

02

53-05

01

53-05

01

53-05

02

The two 53-05 records with 01 now link with the 53-04 with 01.  The 53-05 record with 02 now links with the 53-04 with 02.

5.      L&A – Additional Output Cycle Has Been Added

An additional cycle is being added as part of the Fall 2003 Release.  As of December 5, 2003, L&A will increase to four production output cycles.  A new cycle at 7:00 A.M. EST will be added to the existing cycle times of 10:00 A.M., 1:00 P.M. and 4:00 P.M. EST.  

Important:

Firms that are currently receiving files at 10:00 A.M. may start receiving them at 7:00 A.M. if their trading partners submit the file prior to 7:00 A.M. 

Test cycles will remain the same at 10:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. EST.

For additional information on this enhancement release, please call Gail Denesvich at 212-855-1022 or Craig Gurien at 212-855-5649.  You may also contact your Account Relationship Manager for more information.

Gail Denesvich                                                                                      Craig Gurien
Product Manger                                                                                   Product Manager
DTCC Insurance Services                                                                    DTCC Insurance Services