As the “Trust Framework Architect” for the insurance and financial services industry, I’m very pleased that the industry has formed an association (the ID Federation, Inc) and published the draft Trust Framework today for public consumption.

This Trust Framework follows the Business, Legal and Technical Model Trust Framework method, ensuring that a comprehensive and integrated approach to each of those dimensions.  This Trust Framework enables and governs the use of an industry-wide SSO approach, allowing significant cost savings, better usability and higher security.

To achieve the draft, several key industry leaders chose to work in concert to jump start the process quickly and to scale fast upon launch.  Andy Updegrove, global legal expert in consortia, was selected and engaged to create the non-profit corporation.  Paul LaBella, of the Hartford, provided invaluable project management and leadership through the entire process.  Dazza Greenwood, as the Trust Framework Architect, generated an initial draft and background memos and helped organize the insurance carriers, vendors, agencies and other stakeholders into three drafting committees: Business, Legal and Technology, each with primary authorship of their respective sections of the draft.  Through an iterative process, starting with Version 0.1 and culminating in today’s public release of Version 0.9, the Trust Framework was honed and harmonized.

The initial industry leaders who hired me to facilitate this process were Applied Systems, BB&T, Hanover Insurance, The Hartford, Progressive Insurance and Vertafore, with many more companies joining the initiative over time. These companies, while in some cases fierce competitors, came together for the common purpose of improving the industry and did so with the highest levels of cooperation, expertise and creativity. Their federation serves is a best-of-class manifestation of the NSTIC reference to Trust Frameworks, and the communities of common purpose that create them, and it serves as a good example of how the United States can lead in high performance business and technology innovation.