5.7. Table

In order to maintain consistency and traceability in the distribution chain, it is important that parties can exchange data in a tabular structure. The cluster table enables retrieval of information to incorporate in an agent application. It is a way to ensure that manual or automated selections in the agent application, website or portal are using values that correspond with those of the insurance provider.

Examples of these selections are conditions and clauses, proprietary data from the insurance provider, used in the underwriting process, when the policy is drawn up. The agents need to have the conditions and clauses of the insurer at their disposal, because the automated underwriting process will use references and not the integral text. To issue the policy, the agent application needs to add the text of the applicable conditions and clauses based on the shared references. But an insurance provider may also create a custom table which combines several attributes and codelist values for a specific process.

Clusters are concentrated around AFD structures. The cluster table is linked to the afsTableStructure (more information on the afsTableStructure is available in chapter afsTableStructure). Thus, a cluster already indicates to a certain extent which data will be communicated. To indicate which data is communicated and to what purpose, an operation and a variant must be selected. See the chapter Retrieve for a description of applicable operation(s) and variant(s).