The Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) announced that the First Notice of Loss (FNOL) Implementation Guide and Appendix C have been updated to include instructions on how to include a scan to the Business Message Suite (BMS) FNOL message.
No changes were made to the BMS, only the expansion of the message’s use.
Clint Marlow, chairman of the FNOL Committee, said the committee recently recognized the need to include a scan with the FNOL message. The committee is responsible for developing and maintaining the processes related to FNOL business flow.
“An increasing number of OEMs have incorporated telematics data capabilities into their vehicle offerings,” said Marlow. “Leveraging connected car technologies, many current model year vehicles have the capability to generate a vehicle health scan that includes diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs).”
Marlow said that having DTCs at FNOL can help determine degree of damage, repairability and potentially even begin to form the repair plan.
“CIECA remains ahead of the curve by updating its current FNOL message suite with the ability to include a vehicle scan,” he said.
The FNOL message was first added in the 2017R1 Release of the CIECA Standards.
“FNOL messages provide business partners the ability to notify and be notified of accident information to and from multiple parties,” said Charley Quirt, project manager for CIECA. “These FNOL messages are focused on shortening the claims process.”
Quirt said all industry segments will benefit from this update, including insurance companies and agents, repair facilities, fleet companies, information technology providers and third-party administrators (TPAs).
The FNOL XML Implementation Guide (IG) provides standardized messaging for CIECA members who are implementing XML messages to send and/or receive FNOL messages. The guide, along with its referenced documents and links, provides a detailed explanation of the messages and defines uniform data content, valid codes and values for making FNOL requests and responses the same for all business partners.
“The guide helps users successfully migrate from their own internal format to the CIECA Standard’s format recognized throughout the industry,” said Quirt.
Information is available for CIECA members in the Appendix C document, which defines recommended message implementations for the collision industry, focused on the FNOL process and detailing what and where data should be placed in the message.
For more information, visit cieca.com and select Committee Work and Documents in the menu.