The insurance industry has long struggled with fragmented data — every carrier, regulator, and service provider using its own formats, slowing down compliance, innovation, and collaboration. That’s where openIDL and openIDS come in.
openIDL
openIDL (Open Insurance Data Link) is the umbrella initiative under the Linux Foundation. It was launched in 2018 to bring insurers, regulators, and technology providers together around a common mission: make insurance data exchange faster, more secure, and more useful for everyone. Early on, openIDL proved blockchain could handle sensitive insurance data through a successful pilot in North Dakota, where carriers, the DMV, and regulators exchanged data on uninsured motorists.
But the industry asked for more. Carriers and regulators didn’t just want a faster pipe for data — they wanted a shared language. That’s why openIDL pivoted to focus on building a true data standard.
openIDS
openIDS (Open Insurance Data Standards) is that standard. It is the workhorse inside openIDL, creating the actual data models and specifications that allow insurers, regulators, reinsurers, and service providers to communicate seamlessly.
It provides a core insurance model (covering policy, claims, and risk) and extension points (for jurisdiction-specific regulations, emerging risks like climate or cyber, and industry innovations like IoT).
It is governed openly under Linux Foundation rules, ensuring neutrality, transparency, and long-term sustainability.
Understanding openIDL and openIDS
People sometimes get confused about how openIDL and openIDS relate to each other. Here’s the straightforward way to think about it:
- openIDL is the Linux Foundation project. It provides the overall umbrella — the legal home, the resources, and the organizational structure. It’s what makes this work possible in an open, neutral, and anti-trust compliant environment.
- openIDS (Open Insurance Data Standards) is the working group inside openIDL. It is where the community actually does the work:
- Hosting the meetings.
- Defining the standard.
- Running the governance process around that standard.
In other words:
- openIDL = the umbrella + resources + home within the Linux Foundation.
- openIDS = the community that meets, builds, and governs the data standard under that umbrella.
Together, they make sure the insurance industry has both the structure to support long-term collaboration (openIDL) and the active community and standards development that drives real progress (openIDS).