Every insurance company is required by Utah law to report their full book of business with every submission. When considering what should be reported, it is essential to understand the objective of the database program. The main objective is to match active policy information provided by insurance companies to vehicles registered in Utah. This represent most vehicles used on public roadways. Apportioned, municipal vehicles and trailers are exempt. A secondary objective is to match policy information from insurance companies to the respective drivers. Vehicles are the main focus, as vehicles are insured in Utah, not drivers.

The data elements that are required are different for personal and commercial lines. The data that needs to be reported depends on the type of policy that is reported and the information that is available to the insurance company. To better understand what needs to be reported, it is important to understand the data elements that are required and the structure or layout of the data. These are detailed on these respective links, but are summarized below.

The data elements are divided into four different categories-- vehicle information (Vin, Make and Year), policy information (four-digit code assigned by Insure-Rite, policy number, effective date and expiration date), name and address information (last name, first name, address, city, state, zip, garaged address, garaged city, garaged state and garaged zip)and driver information (driver license number and state; and date of birth). Each record also has a data element (scheduled) that designates what type of policy record is being reported. The designations include 'S', 'U', 'V' and 'D'. These coincide with scheduled personal policies, unscheduled commercial policies, vehicle only policies and driver only policies respectively. These are addressed in more depth in the following paragraphs:

• Type 'S', or scheduled personal lines represent the majority of records that are reported from insurance companies. Not only are insurance companies required to report their full book of business, they are also required to send every vehicle-driver combination for personal lines. Keep in mind the two main objectives outlined in the beginning of this web page. For example, assume an insurance company insures a 2004 Jeep and a 2005 GMC. John and Jane Doe are listed as drivers for each of these vehicles. In this scenario, the insurance company would submit a total of four records. The 2004 Jeep would be listed twice -- one record with Jane Doe listed as the driver and another record for John Doe listed as the driver. This process would be repeated for the 2005 GMC.
  
  For scheduled personal lines, insurance companies are required to submit all data elements , including: vehicle information; policy information; name and address information and driver information. The data layout should coincide with Insure-Rite's structure. This link includes the starting and ending positions of the data elements and what data types are anticipated.
  
  
• Type 'U', or unscheduled commercial policies represent commercial fleets where vehicle specific information is not provided to the insurance company. If vehicle specific information is not available to the insurance company, the company must send a letter to Insure-Rite, addressed to Ken Stuart, indicating this information is not available to report. Every effort should be made to report vehicle information.
  
  With these factors in mind, records marked type 'U' should only include policy information; and, name and address information. Although all the data elements  are not being reported, the same structure should be used. The data elements that are not necessary should be left empty (vehicle and driver information); and the starting and ending positions, size and data type outlined in the layout should be maintained.
  
  
• Type 'V', or vehicle only policies. This includes commercial policies where vehicle specific information is available; or, rare instances where driver information is not available for personal line policies. Again, insurance companies writing commercial policies are strongly encouraged to report vehicle specific information. This helps Insure-Rite more accurately meet the main objective of the program to match insurance information with vehicle information.
  
  With respect to what to report, records designated as type 'V' should include: vehicle information; policy information; and, name and address information. Like type 'U', the data elements  that are not necessary (driver information) should be left empty; and the starting and ending positions, size and data type outlined in Insure-Rite's structure should be maintained.
  
  
• Type 'D', or driver only policies represent a small portion of the total number of policy records that are submitted. Type 'D' indciates coverage for only a driver, without having a vehicle to reference. 

When Should Data be Reported?

The timing and frequency of reporting depends on whether the policy records are commercial or personal lines. After July 1, 2006, commercial policy records need to be submitted once a month, by the 7th of each month. Personal policy records need to be reported twice a month. The first submission is due by the 7th of the month; while, the second submission is due by the 21st of each month. Utah law requires the full book of business for both submissions. Companies may begin submitting bi-monthly at anytime before July 1, 2006.   

If an insurance company has been submitting data but does not have any more active records, even for one month, they must notify Lydia Bradford at lbradford@insure-rite.com. The record will be marked inactive and will keep the company in compliance with Utah law.

How and Where Should Data be Reported?

Data will only be accepted via electronic mail or FTP. Insurance companies are strongly encouraged, but not required to, encrypt their data. Insure-Rite, Inc. offers PGP encryption, with either the RSA or DH/DSS algorithms. If an insurance company chooses not to encrypt their data using PGP, they must fill-out and sign an authorization form and fax it to Lydia Bradford at 801-531-0312. The following paragraphs outline the procedures for submitting data via email or ftp:

Email

Data can be submitted to our email account at submissions@insure-rite.com . Insurance companies are strongly encouraged to encrypt their data. The data should be included as an attachment and must conform to Insure-Rite's data  structure. The data file should be named using Insure-Rite's file naming specification and should be labeled using Insure-Rite's labeling specifications. The information that goes into the labeling file can be included in the message portion of the email instead of submitting a seperate file.

The data file can be a flat text file, an excel spreadsheet or x-base style database file. If the file is a flat text file, the starting and ending positions must conform to Insure-Rite's data  structure. With respect to an excel spreadsheet, the spreadsheet must have all the 21 columns outlined in the structure (VIN,Make, year, etc...). A dbf file must also have all 21 columns. The extensions should match the file type, flat text (sdf, txt or dat), excel (xls) and x-base (dbf).

The email option is chiefly available to smaller insurance companies with less than 25,000 records. If you are reporting more than 25,000 records, you are encouraged to use FTP. Electronic mail has limitations on the size of the file that can be submitted. Also, some email servers will reject encrypted files. With this in mind, FTP is the preferred option.

FTP

Insurance data can be transferred to our FTP server at ftp.insure-rite.com. The associated IP address is 166.70.246.231. To login to this account, you need to contact Lydia Bradford (lbradford@insure-rite.com) to obtain an user name and password. Most companies are already submitting their data FTP and already have a user name and password. Not many insurance companies have been successful logging into our server using a browser. It is best to use a command line, script or third party ftp transfer program.

Upon a successful login, data will only be accepted in our incoming directory. With this in mind, the incoming directory (not inbox) needs to be defined in the ftp script or in the 3rd party FTP application. Once the user is in the incoming directory, the files can be 'put' to our server. Along these lines, this directory only has put rights. The user will not be able to view the contents of this directory or get any files from this directory. Therefore, it is wise to have the script log the transmission to ensure the file was successfully transmitted. Also, an email will be sent back to the email address included in the labeling file letting the user know the transmission was successful. 

Two files must be sent to the incoming directory, the data file and the labeling file. The filenames should be exactly the same, with different extensions.The data file can be a flat text file, an excel spreadsheet or x-base style database file. If the file is a flat text file, the starting and ending positions must conform to Insure-Rite's data  structure . With respect to an excel spreadsheet, the spreadsheet must have all the 21 columns outlined in the structure (VIN,make, year, etc...). A dbf file must also have all 21 columns. The extensions should match the file type, flat text (sdf, txt or dat), excel (xls) and x-base (dbf). For more information of file naming specifications, please see file naming specification. 

The labeling file should have the same name as the data file, with an (ini) extension. This will allow our server to match the data file with the labeling file. The contents of the file must conform to Insure-Rite's labeling specifications .

Reports

Insure-Rite does not send error reports as it is contrary to our business model. Error reports put the onus on the insurance companies, requiring them to fix VIN's or other data elements. This results in a never ending electronic trail that leaves both sides frustrated; and results in an ineffective product for the State.

Insure-Rite's business model includes processing the data as is from the insurance company. If there is a systemic problem with the data, all VIN's are missing, the data is in the wrong order or the match rate is really low, a representative from Insure-Rite will personally contact the insurance company and inform them of the problem. Insure-Rite has a mature system that can accurately match policy information to vehicle information in spite of missing our incomplete data from insurance companies. In short, there are enough common elements (VIN, make, year, name, address, city, etc) on both sides of the equation (DMV and insurance companies) to accurately match data. Insure-Rite has been successfully using this approach since 1995.

After the matching process is completed, Insure-Rite will send an incomplete data report to the insurance company informing them what data elements are missing or incomplete. The reports will be sent via fax to the recipients identified in the labeling file sent by the insuarnce company. Insurance companies can also request the detail reports be sent via email by contacting Lydia Bradford at lbradford@insure-rite.com The insurance company can use this information to see what records are missing or incomplete. What constitutes missing or incomplete data is addressed in more depth on the following link (please see incomplete data reports .)