Overview of lines of business

Lines of business

A line of business (LOB) is a set of information that is used to define a type of product offered by an insurer. For example, "Personal Auto Line" is a line of business used to define the "Personal Auto" product. The primary type of information in a line of business includes the following:

Type Definition Example from Personal Auto
Coverable A thing that is covered by the policy Vehicle
Coverage For each coverable, a specific type of covered loss Collision coverage (for a specific vehicle)
Coverage term A value that further defines or limits the extent of a coverage A deductible for a given collision coverage
Modifier Information relevant to rating that is not necessarily tied to a specific coverable or coverage An "Anti-Lock Breaks" modifier that provides a discount for collision coverage if the vehicle has anti-lock breaks
Question Information that can be used to pre-qualify an account or gather additional information relevant to rating The question "Has any policy or coverage been declined, canceled, or non-renewed during the prior 3 years?" Saying yes could disqualify the account.
Exposure A thing that is not a coverable but gathers additional information to help rate or process a policy Driver. This provides information about a vehicle's drivers that can affect pricing (such as the driver's age), but coverages are not attached directly to any driver.
Exclusion A limit to coverages that defines circumstances where the coverage does not apply A "Custom Equipment" exclusion, which excludes coverage for damage done to "aftermarket equipment and modifications"
Condition A contractual obligation of the insurance policy that are neither coverages nor exclusions A condition stating that cancellation for non-payment requires a 30-day notice (and not just a 10-day notice as mandated in the jurisdiction)

LOB-specific endpoints

Every line of business has its own set of information, such as its own coverables, its own coverages, and so on. When you want to interact with this LOB-specific information, you must use endpoints specific to that LOB.

For example, the Personal Auto line of business for a given insurer might have the following endpoints:

  • POST /jobs​/{jobId}​/lines​/PersonalAutoLine/vehicles
  • POST /jobs​/{jobId}​/lines​/PersonalAutoLine/vehicles/{vehicleId}/coverages
  • POST /jobs​/{jobId}​/lines​/PersonalAutoLine/vehicles/{vehicleId}/drivers
  • GET /jobs/{jobId}/lines/PersonalAutoLine/modifiers

The LOB-specific endpoints are discussed in later topics in this section.

LOB-specific endpoints are not present in the base configuration of Cloud API for PolicyCenter. These endpoints must be generated by the insurer for each product. They reflect the structure of that product as defined by the insurer. The examples in this topic all come from LOB-specific endpoints generated for the base configuration version of Personal Auto.

  • For general information on how to generate LOB-specific endpoints for any product, see the Cloud API Developer Guide.
  • For information on how to generate the endpoints for the base configuration Personal Auto product, see the Cloud API Developer Guide.

LOB-generic endpoints

Most of the endpoints that advance a job's state are not specific to any LOB. This includes endpoints such as:

  • POST /job/v1/jobs/{jobId}/quote
  • POST /job/v1/jobs/{jobId}/bind-and-issue

These endpoints are discussed in the topics on each job type, such as the Submissions topic.

There are also endpoints that work with objects available to all jobs, regardless of its LOB. This includes endpoints for working with objects such as:

  • Contacts
  • Locations
The LOB-generic endpoints are discussed in later topics in this section.