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If you would like to share information about your standards implementation in the next CIECA spotlight article, please email stacey@cieca.com.

CIECA’s primary mission is to develop and publish data standards for the collision industry. For the data standards to be effective, they must be meaningful to all collision industry segments and provide a common vocabulary for digital communication. To ensure that goal is achieved, CIECA’s Committees are comprised of members and volunteers from all industry segments. The committees work together through CIECA’s Standards Advisory Board to ensure that their work products are consistent.

With the creation of CIECA API Standards (CAPIS)—based on JSON APIs—many CIECA committees have been reactivated and/or established. These include artificial intelligence (AI), Electric Vehicles (EV), OEM Repair Procedures, Referral and Vehicle Damage & Imaging (VDI).

CIECA’s Architecture Committee, which consists of technical representatives from CIECA member companies, works closely with all committees to ensure new standards meet the guidelines and rules established over the years. Active members include Chairman Dan Webster from Enlyte; Board of Trustees member and past chair Phil Martinez from Mitchell; Andy Bober from Entegral; and Car-Part.com representatives Jeff Schroder, a member of the Board of Trustees and past chair, and Mike Hastings, a Board of Trustees alternate.

The current work being done in CIECA’s AI and Referral Committees are excellent examples of the committee process and how new standards are created. Committee volunteers meet regularly to discuss opportunities to create new CIECA API Standards based on industry needs.

Both committees were established in 2022. The AI committee was formed to discuss the impact of AI to the collision industry and determine if changes are needed to CIECA’s current messages and/or if new data standards need to be created.

Unlike some CIECA messages, the proposed AI message is relatively simple.  It provides the means for a company to submit photographs to an AI service provider and receive back the output of the AI engine. The business purpose is to receive an AI-generated response, so it is not as complicated as other messages, such as Referral.

The Referral Committee has looked at ways to improve customer service in the inspection and repair process by developing and maintaining messaging standards aimed at automating vehicle referral activities.

The Referral message is similar to an assignment message; however, the assignment message is triggered by the billpayer, while the Referral message comes from other business partners who aren’t responsible for payment.

For example, in the past, the insurance company paying for the tow, rental, etc., typically sent the assignment to the business partner. Today, there are systems, such as telematics, that may trigger a tow or rental and are not responsible for paying these services.

The Referral message is expected to set some groundwork for CIECA’s new VDI Committee since many of the same elements will be used for the Estimate, Appointment and Authorization messages.

Steps to Create A New Data Standard

1)  A CIECA Standards Committee, such as AI or Referral, creates data requirements for a new industry standard. They could include a new message or code list or any data that a new message needs.

2)  The data requirements are forwarded to CIECA’s Architecture Committee for evaluation and the committee is considered to be in “maintenance mode.”

3)  The Architecture Committee either approves the data or recommends changes.

4)  If needed, a combined meeting is held with the Architecture Committee and standards committee to discuss the proposed changes.

5)  The standards committee is reactivated to work on any suggested changes the Architecture Committee recommends. 

6)  After being approved by the Architecture Committee, the standard is put through a final review during a Quality Assurance meeting.

7)  The standard is formally scheduled to be included in one of CIECA’s two standards releases, which are sent to members each year for implementation.

How CIECA Members Create New Standards

Across the industry, companies use CIECA Standards to exchange data. Although CIECA doesn’t facilitate the exchange of data, the organization provides the standards and documentation for member companies to build APIs with trading partners.

Typically, the process includes the following:

• Contacting the trading partner you want to work with.
• Joining CIECA and obtaining a license to use CIECA Standards. 
• Reaching an agreement with your trading partner on which messages / APIs you will need to achieve your business objective.
• Building your APIs using the standards and documentation available to members on the CIECA website.
• Working with your trading partner to obtain any required permissions and/or credentials to access their APIs.

A webinar held last week by the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association (CIECA) shared technical details about its newly up-and-running CAPIS standards.

The standards can supplement or be used as an alternative to the current XML-based Business Message Suite (BMS) framework for developers to create collision industry software.

CIECA encourages the collision repair industry to use CAPIS and/or Business Message Suite (BMS) standards instead of EMS for the sake of data privacy, especially when it comes to personally identifiable information (PII). PII includes names, addresses, phone numbers, and license plate numbers of customers and/or vehicle owners who come into repair centers. PII also debatably includes the VIN since it can be linked back to names, addresses, and phone numbers, Tagliapetra previously said.

“We want to continue to develop the most current and relevant products available so that the shop industry and the collision industry as a whole can have the best tools and security,” said Paul Barry, CIECA’s executive director, in an interview with Repairer Driven News. “Data privacy has been a long-standing concern in the industry… We’ve been trying for years to get off of the EMS.”

Concerns raised about EMS involve large sets of data being sent from repair centers, a lot of which is unnecessary to send, putting data privacy at risk.

In a previous CIECA webinar, Datatouch Managing Director Pete Tagliapetra and Barry explained that EMS was intended and created only for internal shop use so external information security was not considered in the design.

EMS creates large files of unencrypted data pulled from estimates.

“One of the problems with the EMS is it just sits on the shop’s machine,” Barry said. “It’s a local file that gets generated by the estimating system… it’s unencrypted, it’s not secured in any way… With BMS, it’s the option to get just the data you need.

“It should be secured with authentication, user ID, and password type authentication so that when that data is being transmitted, it’s not just unencrypted data floating around in space.”

Barry added CIECA hopes smaller companies will take notice of the new CAPIS standards and adopt them. Most larger companies have already done so, or adopted BMS, he said. Those who are interested in CAPIS can check out the video below for insights from CIECA member companies Mitchell International, Integral, and Carparts.com on using them as well as demos within commonly used tools.

For example, Carparts.com is using CAPIS for parts ordering through its marketplace.

“The business case is we created parts invoices payments and fulfillment updates and we were able to do that with test instances being provided and also using tools Stoplight Studio and Postman,” said Jeff Schroder, with Carparts.com.

 “If you look at the volume of transactions that occur across the industry, they’re almost all in the BMS today. These are standing integrations between CCC, Mitchell, Audatex, insurance companies, and MSOs.”

Smaller companies might send an assignment by email then the repair center uploads the estimate, meaning those companies are likely working EMS, he added.

“There’s a lot of small companies that do that and they may have a data pump doing it,” Barry said. “Data pumps are resident on the body shops’ machine and just pumps out every estimate that gets written. That’s a concern for the industry so we’d like to try to discourage that model and move to something better. Something better today is BMS and is starting to be CAPIS.”

Data pumps used by parts suppliers and claims processing agents, as just a couple of examples, will continue to send data indefinitely to those businesses whether repair facilities are still working with them or not until they’re uninstalled, likely including copying every estimate.

CAPIS is a more modern language. “The point is [to] pick the tool that’s right for the job,” Barry said. “If we build a better mouse trap and somebody goes, ‘Hey, you know what if we used CAPIS instead that would be a better model.’ Then, they’ve got more incentive to do it. By providing better tools that are more nimble, faster, and lighter to work with we’re hoping to encourage companies to move [in] that direction.

Two years ago, CIECA announced it would embark on the next generation of collision industry standards—JSON-based Open API Standards. Since then, CIECA has established committees to determine what electronic communication standards need to be created. Each quarter, we’ll feature one of these committees in the CIECA Standard newsletter. 

CIECA’s Referral Committee was formed in October 2022 after Kim DeVallance Caron, Global Product Portfolio Director for Enterprise Holdings, suggested the idea during CIECA’s semi-annual meeting in 2022. 

“The collision industry’s technology and customer expectations have changed significantly since the BMS standards were created in 2006,” said DeVallance Caron. “With vehicle technology, smart phones, etc. having the ability to detect crashes and support the fulfillment of services at the time of incident, it was clear CIECA as an organization needed to take these use cases into consideration.”

“The insurance-based assignment model used in the BMS simply doesn’t capture the scope and variability that is emerging as vehicle and smart phone-based sensors offer alternative means of communicating accident information,” said Paul Barry, CIECA’s executive director.

The committee’s objective is to improve customer service and efficiencies in the inspection and repair process by developing and maintaining messaging standards aimed at automating vehicle referral activities. 

DeVallance Caron explained that many services at the time of incident have not or will not be vetted/authorized by the insurance carrier; meanwhile, the customer needs to get the process started and in motion.

The Referral Committee will take these into consideration and come up with the referral services and messages that customers will need depending on the severity of the accident. 

DeVallance Caron said the ultimate goal is to create referral standards that will get the appropriate information to the parties involved in the claim (shop, insurance carrier, etc.) and get the customer the services they need at time of incident (tow, rental, glass, etc.).

The committee is open to members and non-members and currently consists of all collision industry segments that use the assignment message.

Paulette Reed, CIECA’s technical project manager, explained that the referral message is similar to an assignment message; however, an assignment is typically triggered by the bill payer (insurance company) and the referral comes from business partners that are not responsible for payment.

“In the past, the company that sent the assignment to the business partner was typically the same as the one paying for the tow, rental, etc.,” said Reed. “With new technologies being used today, there are different ways the assignment of services can be initiated after a collision.”

For example, through telematics, an OEM can make a referral to a body shop after first notice of loss (FNOL).

CIECA has announced the formation of a new Standards Development Committee focused on Electric Vehicles (EVs) and electric batteries. The committee will be chaired by Frank Phillips, senior manager-Certified Collision North America for Rivian, Jake Rodenroth, North American Body Repair Program operations manager for Lucid Motors, and Ginny Whelan, senior consultant for the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA).

The first meeting is Wednesday, March 1. All industry stakeholders, including CIECA and non-CIECA members, are invited to join.

In 2022, CIECA’s Recycled Parts and Inventory Committee, chaired by Whelan, was discussing recycled EV parts and found that questions kept arising about how an EV’s lifecycle and batteries would impact recycled parts. As a result, the EV Committee was formed.

The committee will bring together companies and individuals from all industry segments to discuss how EVs will change the current business workflows and data. Committee members will identify new data sources, access and sharing requirements, connectivity methodologies, workflows and terminology.

“The goal is to create new workflows that will show the lifecycle of an EV and its battery,” said Paulette Reed, CIECA’s technical project manager. “The workflows will then be used to generate new messages and data elements so the industry will be able to continue sharing data electronically.”

Whelan foresees the committee will address the safe handling of an EV, the impact of parts and materials on the collision repair process, and the availability of charging stations. She said the committee will also likely discuss EV battery issues, such as mining, manufacturing and battery strength.

“I think the safety component is definitely something worth spotlighting and ensuring that the industry has a good understanding of,” said Phillips. “We want the industry to have the proper knowledge and understand what it takes to repair these vehicles.”

“I think the message is market readiness,” said Rodenroth. “We want to ensure all entities of the industry are ready and understand the lifecycle of the EV, what they are working on and how to work on it.” 

Thank you to the following publications for sharing this announcement: 

Autobody News

CIECA has created an online Tech Forum for members to exchange information and learn from others. The support forum is open to all CIECA standards users.

“We often receive the same type of questions from members,” said Paul Barry, CIECA’s executive director. “This prompted the development of a support forum for all members to be able to ask questions and exchange information.”

“Discussion forums are a great way to research and gather information and solve problems,” said Paulette Reed, CIECA’s technical project manager. “We encourage all members to sign up and join the community.”

In addition to new members, experienced users are also encouraged to join the forum to assist others who are new at doing implementations.

Currently, there are four categories of information. New topics will be added as the need arises.

• General: General Discussion

• BMS Standards (XML): Discussions related to the implementation and usage of CIECA BMS Standards

• EMS Standards (dBase): Discussions relating to the use of CIECA EMS Standards

• API Standards (JSON): Discussions related to the use and implementation of the CIECA API Standards

For more information, contact Paulette Reed, CIECA's technical project manager.

Established in 1980, CCC Intelligent Solutions (CCC) has grown to become a leading Software as a Service (SaaS) platform for the property and casualty insurance industry, providing services for insurers, repairers, automakers, part suppliers, lenders, and more.

The publicly traded company, led by Chairman and CEO Githesh Ramamurthy, has more than 2,000 employees across the U.S. With a current focus on artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), customer experience, and network and workflow management, CCC’s cloud technology connects more than 30,000 businesses.

Q: How long has CCC used CIECA Standards and how is the company currently using BMS in its business?

CCC was a founding member of CIECA. We supported CIECA’s original vision to create a standards organization that would simplify the workflow for collision repairers. Our first implementation of CIECA EMS in our early estimating solutions enabled repairers to exchange information between our estimating solution and other shop management systems. As time passed, EMS became much more than a solution for repairers to eliminate rekeying into a shop management system and began a standard that powered claims processing and e-commerce throughout the entire auto physical damage ecosystem.

Q: What are some benefits of using BMS Standards when communicating with others in the industry?

A: There are many benefits to using BMS standards to exchange information between trading partners. First and foremost is the security of information. BMS in and of itself is not secure. Having an XML file residing locally on a PC creates the same security exposure as EMS. However, exchanging the data through secure channels of communication using 128-bit encryption protects the contents of the data being exchanged. With BMS comes flexibility of the message contents that didn’t exist with EMS.

With EMS, it is all or nothing and includes customer personally identifiable information (PII), insurance and claim information, vehicle information and VIN number, and of course, all the lines of the estimate, such as the part numbers and damage description. With BMS, repairers can share the elements of the message that is relevant to the purpose of the receiving party. For example, a CSI provider may need PII to contact the consumer to perform a survey; however, that message would not include the VIN or lines of the estimate as those data elements are not relevant to the purpose of performing customer satisfaction surveys.

Q: What is the importance of getting involved in CIECA’s board and committees?

A: CCC has participated on the CIECA board since its inception. With the millions of transactions we support using CIECA Standards every month, it has always been important for us to have a voice in the future of the organization with participation on both the board and committees. The CIECA leadership team has really taken the organization to the next level with a focused agenda and strong project management disciplines to advance initiatives in a very effective manner. We strongly encourage anyone using the CIECA Standard to participate on committees to help drive these standards forward in a way that will benefit all.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add about CCC’s use of  CIECA Standards or industry standards in general?

A: In 2017, we launched CCC Secure Share using BMS to provide the industry with a secure method of information exchange. While the industry wasn’t ready to move off of EMS, we have implemented the BMS standard in the way it was originally envisioned, exchanging the appropriate business information securely between multiple trading parties through a simple configuration available to over 27,000 collision repair facilities. Without the vision of CIECA, the efficient and secure exchange of information that benefits dozens of application providers and thousands of repairers through CCC Secure Share would not be possible.

Read about CCC Intelligent Solutions.

If you would like to share information about your BMS implementation in the next CIECA spotlight article, please email stacey@cieca.com.