IUMI is one of the associations that is involved with the International Chamber of Commerce Digital Standards Initiative (ICC DSI). I have been working for the “Key Trade Documents and Data Elements” project with other industry associations such as BIMCO, DCSA, FIATA, IATA, SWIFT, WCO and others which have their own trading documents and are transforming them into a digital format.

As I have written a number of times in this newsletter, the digitisation of trade documents is making progress and we need to be ready for issuing digital cargo insurance certificates and policies to be aligned with these other documents.

In November 2023, as a result of the project, ICC issued its “Key Trade Documents and Data Elements” report which is an analysis and recommendations for digital standards for each trading document, including cargo insurance documents.

Here you can find the analysis for the digitisation of cargo insurance documents along with other trade documents. There is also a further report published in March which includes related documents (cargo insurance documents are updated in the new version published in November).    　

Today, cargo insurance documents are still primarily issued in PDF or paper format, with limited structured data exchange due to the scarcity of platforms equipped for this purpose. During the 1990s, “Certificate of Insurance” and “Consignment Advice for Insurance” functional messages, based on the United Nations/Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport (UN/EDIFACT) messages (IFTMCA) were introduced. However, there has been no further EDI activities on insurance documents since then, suggesting a limited practical use of these standards. To align with contemporary digital platforms featuring API capabilities, a data standard for structured insurance data, pioneered by the Cargo Insurance Data Association (CIDA) was introduced in 2022.   

The “Key Trade Documents and Data Elements” report refers to other trade documents such as Commercial Invoice, Packing List, Bill of Lading, Warehouse Receipt, Certificate of Origin, Customs Declaration, Customs Bond, Letter of Credit, Purchase Order, Payment Confirmation, Export Cargo Shipping Instruction, Rail Consignment Note, Road Consignment Note, Sea Cargo Manifest, Air Cargo Manifest, Airway Bill, Seaway Bill, Ship’s Delivery Order, Bill of Exchange, Promissory Note and others. 

Facilitating digitalisation of trade documents is in the interest of the entire marine insurance sector and participation to achieve this objective is welcome, e.g. via CIDA.