Palm Coast, Fla. — Dec. 1, 2011 — ACI, a leading innovator in valuation technology for the mortgage industry, announced at the Valuation Expo 2011 the release of a new Appraisal Reader powered by Appraisal.com. The new technology helps lenders and reviewers view and validate appraisal reports prepared by any appraisal software vendor that supports the new MISMO XML format.

Appraisal.com is an ACI brand that serves the appraiser and lender communities. The Appraisal Reader is compact and provides mortgage professionals with a critical tool to conduct a review while keeping all the components of the appraisal report intact. The review is performed using ACI’s PAR^®Logic rules, a comprehensive library that checks the appraisal report for compliance. Custom client-specific rules can also be applied on demand using PAR Logic to highlight errors and omissions.

The Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) information embedded in the PDF appraisal report is also available in a concise, organized manner using the QuickView™ Summary Report within the Appraisal Reader. The QuickView Summary Report presents the UAD information in a form and helps streamline the review and validation process prior to submission to the Uniform Collateral Data Portal^® (UCDP^®).

“With the advent of the UCDP, ensuring regulatory compliance before submitting appraisal reports to the portal is increasingly important for lenders and appraisers,” said Dave Roberts, president of ACI. “We’ve developed a sophisticated, yet free, solution that enables lenders, credit unions, and community banks to easily view and validate MISMO XML appraisal reports using Appraisal.com technology.”

About ACI

ACI, a pioneer in crafting technology solutions for the mortgage valuation community, has gained industrywide recognition and support from leaders in the field. ACI’s highly scalable appraisal solutions are tailored to the needs of the organizations ACI serves. The ACI client base features many of North America’s premier lenders, national appraisal companies, and real estate brokerage firms. From connecting appraisers nationwide to streamlining quality control, ACI enables organizations to process appraisals and manage exceptions in a consistent and efficient manner. Headquartered in Palm Coast, Florida, ACI (www.aciweb.com) is a division of Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK).

About Verisk Analytics

Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) is a leading provider of information about risk to professionals in insurance, healthcare, mortgage, government, and risk management. Using advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records, Verisk Analytics draws on vast industry expertise and unique proprietary data sets to provide predictive analytics and decision-support solutions in fraud prevention, actuarial science, insurance coverages, fire protection, catastrophe and weather risk, data management, and many other fields. In the United States and around the world, Verisk Analytics helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information, visit www.verisk.com.

PALM COAST, Fla., Oct. 17, 2011  – ACI, a leading innovator in technology to the mortgage valuation industry, announced that National Real Estate Information Services (NREIS) is in production with Appraisal.com, an appraiser-facing portal that scrutinizes appraisal reports for completeness, correctness, consistency, and compliance.

“We were impressed with the capabilities of Appraisal.com which include seamless integration with our existing vendor website, ensuring an automated process and providing compliance with the MISMO XML and Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) protocol that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created,” said Chris Behning, CIO of NREIS. “We also wanted to ensure that it’s reliable and flawless in its execution. Given our history in working with ACI, we were very confident in their ability to deliver.”

“NREIS recognized that Appraisal.com could satisfy the delivery requirements of the investors, speed the process, and trim costs,” said George Opelka, senior vice president for sales and marketing at ACI. “ACI offers enterprise-level solutions that allow clients to receive and review appraisal reports, comply with regulations, and deliver appraisals directly to the Uniform Collateral Data Portal^SM (UCDP^SM).”

About ACI
ACI, a pioneer in crafting technology solutions for the mortgage valuation community, has gained industrywide recognition and support from leaders in the field. ACI’s highly scalable appraisal solutions are tailored to the needs of the organizations ACI serves. The ACI client base features many of North America’s premier lenders, national appraisal companies, and real estate brokerage firms. From connecting appraisers nationwide to streamlining quality control, ACI enables organizations to process appraisals and manage exceptions in a consistent and efficient manner. Headquartered in Palm Coast, Florida, ACI (http://www.aciweb.com/) is a division of Verisk Analytics.

About Verisk Analytics
Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) is a leading provider of information about risk to professionals in insurance, healthcare, mortgage, government, and risk management. Using advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records, Verisk Analytics draws on vast industry expertise and unique proprietary data sets to provide predictive analytics and decision-support solutions in fraud prevention, actuarial science, insurance coverages, fire protection, catastrophe and weather risk, data management, and many other fields. In the United States and around the world, Verisk Analytics helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information, visit www.verisk.com.

August 2, 2011 – Palm Coast, Fla. – ACI, a leading innovator in technology for the mortgage valuation industry, announced today that Appraisal.com is integrating as an appraisal delivery platform to the Uniform Collateral Data Portal^® (UCDP^®). The UCDP is a single portal for the electronic submission of appraisal data files for loans sold to either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, the GSEs (Government-Sponsored Enterprises), and facilitates the electronic collection of appraisal report data.

The following conventional appraisal report types are required to be submitted
to the UCDP:

• Uniform Residential Appraisal Report*
• Exterior-Only Inspection Residential Appraisal Report*
• Individual Condominium Unit Appraisal Report *
• Exterior-Only Inspection Individual Condominium Unit Appraisal Report*
• Manufactured Home Appraisal Report
• Individual Cooperative Interest Report
• Exterior-Only Individual Cooperative Interest Report
• Small Residential Income Property Appraisal Report

*Indicates UAD standardization applies

Lenders and their designated agents may access the UCDP through vendor-provided solutions like Appraisal.com that provide an integrated system interface to the UCDP, allowing lenders to browse and upload XML or first-generation portable document format (PDF) files to the portal.

“The ability to provide our customers with Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD)-compliant appraisal reports and XML delivery to the UCDP using Appraisal.com is a natural extension for the services that we currently provide to the appraisal industry,” said Dave Roberts, president of ACI. “For more than 20 years, ACI has worked in conjunction with the industry’s largest appraisal companies to streamline the appraisal quality-control process and facilitate the delivery of data to their lender clients.”

Appraisal report forms for all conventional mortgages delivered to the GSEs on or after March 19, 2012, must be submitted to the UCDP if:

• the loan application is dated on or after December 1, 2011, and
• an appraisal report is required.

The appraisal report must be submitted to the UCDP and must include all exhibits, addenda, and photographs. Either an XML data stream (output from appraisal forms software) with an embedded first-generation PDF file or first-generation PDF file without the corresponding XML data must be submitted to the UCDP. The UCDP supports the following XML formats for appraisal deliveries, and all are available in both the ACI and Lighthouse™ software:

• MISMO 2.6 Errata 1 GSE Extended format (preferred format)
• ACI format
• AI Ready format

“ACI has been a leader in the development of the MISMO [Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization] standard within the property and valuation services work group,” said George Opelka, senior vice president of ACI. “This experience, coupled with the ACI format being named one of the accepted delivery standards to the UCDP, provides our clients with flexible and proven options for GSE compliance.”

To facilitate the adoption of the new Uniform Appraisal Dataset, ACI is offering clients access to both a technical-focused and a practitioner’s seminar. The training will be provided at no charge to ACI customers who have a current Premier Service subscription. For more information, contact ACI Sales at 1-800-234-8727.

About ACI
ACI, a pioneer in crafting technology solutions for the mortgage valuation community, has gained industrywide recognition and support from leaders in the field. ACI’s highly scalable appraisal solutions are tailored to the needs of the organizations ACI serves. The ACI client base features many of North America’s premier lenders, national appraisal companies, and real estate brokerage firms. From connecting appraisers nationwide to streamlining quality control, the flexibility ACI provides organizations the means for processing appraisals and managing exceptions in a consistent and efficient manner. Headquartered in Palm Coast, Florida, ACI (www.aciweb.com) is a division of Verisk Analytics.

About Verisk Analytics
Verisk Analytics is a leading provider of information about risk to professionals in insurance, healthcare, mortgage, government, and risk management. Using advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records, Verisk Analytics draws on vast industry expertise and unique proprietary data sets to provide predictive analytics and decision-support solutions in fraud prevention, actuarial science, insurance coverages, fire protection, catastrophe and weather risk, data management, and many other fields. In the United States and around the world, Verisk Analytics helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information, visit www.verisk.com.

July 12, 2011 — Palm Coast, Fla. — ACI, a leading innovator in technology for the mortgage valuation industry, announced today an upgrade to the ACI2010^TM software that includes enhancements for the Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD). The upgrade is available for appraisers to download immediately. The update equips ACI users with functionality that promotes compliance with the UAD, a required library of standardized responses and elements to be used in appraisal reports delivered to government-sponsored enterprises (GSE).

ACI2010 UAD includes several innovative features that promote compliance with the new GSE requirements. Appraisers that leverage the intuitive efficiencies of ACI2010 into their workflow are able to produce UAD-compliant reports with minimal effort.

• Built-in Guidance is provided using compliance dialogs and alerts designed to assist appraisers in meeting UAD requirements. These features are configurable and available at the field level.
• UAD Report Paks for URAR form 1004/70, URAR Exterior-Only form 2055, Individual Unit Condominium form 1073/465, and Exterior-Only Individual Condominium form 1075/466 are prebuilt to include the standard addendums that make adoption simple and fast. Each UAD Pak also includes a UAD definitions page that contains details of code definitions, abbreviations, and UAD-specific handling.
• Field-Level Data Validation provides validation business rules to ensure that appraisers type data in accordance with specific field formats.
• Address Validation is built in to ensure that all addresses conform to USPS address standards for street number, street name, city, state, and ZIP code.
• Automated Tools for lot size assist in automatically converting square feet to acres or acres to square feet based on entry.
• Change Form Type to easily switch form templates for orders originally requested on a non-UAD form, or vice versa.
• Interactive Features for complex entries — that require the use of the UAD as well as comments — are supported with intuitive, interactive dialogs and feature alerts.
• UAD Compliance Rules ensure appraisal reports meet UAD compliance prior to appraisal delivery.

“The transition to UAD will be a smooth process for ACI2010 users because we’ve ensured compliance while leveraging templates, picklists, and rules — all existing functions that ACI appraisers have already mastered,” said Elizabeth Green, ACI director of valuation technologies. “ACI appraisers can learn about the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of UAD through ACI’s UAD training sessions. Both classes are free to all ACI clients who have an active premier service agreement.”

The UAD update for ACI2010 is available at no cost to ACI clients with an active premier service agreement. Clients interested in additional online training may visit www.AppraisersChoice.com/training to view available sessions on ACI products.

About ACI
ACI, a pioneer in crafting technology solutions for the mortgage valuation community, has gained industrywide recognition and support from leaders in the field. ACI’s highly scalable appraisal solutions are tailored to the needs of the organizations ACI serves. The ACI client base features many of North America’s premier lenders, national appraisal companies, and real estate brokerage firms. From connecting appraisers nationwide to streamlining quality control, ACI provides organizations the means for processing appraisals and managing exceptions in a consistent and efficient manner. Headquartered in Palm Coast, Florida, ACI (www.aciweb.com) is a division of Verisk Analytics.

About Verisk Analytics
Verisk Analytics is a leading provider of information about risk to professionals in insurance, healthcare, mortgage, government, and risk management. Using advanced technologies to collect and analyze billions of records, Verisk Analytics draws on vast industry expertise and unique proprietary data sets to provide predictive analytics and decision-support solutions in fraud prevention, actuarial science, insurance coverages, fire protection, catastrophe and weather risk, data management, and many other fields. In the United States and around the world, Verisk Analytics helps customers protect people, property, and financial assets. For more information, visit www.verisk.com.

BUZZ: It was extremely helpful for ACI to provide industry leaders with a preview of UAD at work within the ACI software at the Collateral Risk Network meetings in New Orleans last month. This was the first opportunity for many to see UAD up close from the appraiser’s point-of-view. Can you comment on the reaction from the Q&A that continued throughout the session?

Opelka: The session was very well received and it was an educational exercise that facilitated many positive comments and questions which were then addressed in the demo. Liz Green, ACI’s Director of Valuation Technologies did an admirable job providing a brief UAD overview and walking the group through the ACI software which featured UAD picklists, rules, and appraiser guidance.

BUZZ: It’s obvious that ACI put a lot of thought into the software to help both the appraiser and the intended user.  I really like the addition of the UAD Glossary Addendum, and I think the underwriters will too! Will this be commonplace across all appraisal software?

Opelka: My sense is that the software vendors will provide a glossary of some type. With all the various codes for condition, quality, and newly introduced abbreviations, the UAD Glossary is a necessary addition that will help underwriters better understand the appraisal report right out of the gate. And you’re right, there certainly was a significant level of planning that went into this project. For example, we incorporated online “guidance” for any UAD field in order to help ACI appraisers right at the point of data entry. Given the ground rules provided by the GSEs, the objective was to make the process as simple as possible for an ACI appraiser.

BUZZ: Is there anything that appraisers can do to prepare for UAD  in advance of the September 1, 2011 inception date?

Opelka: There are numerous steps appraisers should take to become aware and prepare for UAD. First of all, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have excellent resources on the web specific to UAD readiness. I’ll include the links below to Fannie and Freddie’s resources, and I strongly encourage appraisers to become acquainted with either of these helpful UAD primers. Secondly, appraisers should talk to their appraisal software vendor and get a sense of their release schedule so they can plan accordingly. Finally, appraisers should talk to their clients so that they understand any deadlines for implementation as well as any special delivery expectations.

BUZZ: Will ACI be providing any UAD training for appraisers?

Opelka: Absolutely. We have an aggressive webinar program that focuses on using UAD in conjunction with the ACI software. The UAD Training Webinar will begin in early June and will run throughout the summer. In addition to getting an in depth look at the software, we’ll also provide an interactive Q&A at the end of each session.  We’ve been posting “UAD Tips and Tricks” on the ACI website since early March to introduce appraisers to UAD in small chunks.

Buzz: Is there a cost for the training and where can someone sign up for the webinar?

Opelka: The training is provided at no cost to any ACI customer with an active service agreement. ACI customers will receive invitations via e-mail and can checkAppraisersChoice.com in the next couple of weeks for details on how they can register for the training sessions.

Buzz: Thanks for visiting The Buzz and sharing your comments with our readers.

Opelka: You’re welcome. UAD marks a significant event in our industry and appraisers should take advantage of the information currently available and begin the education process today.

Important Links: Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac

by George Opelka, SVP

Last week must have been National XML Awareness Week as we were inundated with calls about delivering files to lenders in an XML or MISMO format. Apparently a few lenders have sent out E-Mails in order to alert appraisers about Fannie Mae’s appraisal delivery system which is officially named Collateral Data Delivery (CDD). Lenders will provide appraisal data to the CDD via a web-based system.

Great news for ACI appraisers as Fannie Mae has approved ACI XML as an accepted delivery standard for the CDD. In the event any of your clients are asking you to deliver your appraisals in an “XML” format per Fannie Mae, we are adding this functionality as an add on to our ACI 2010 software. This delivery protocol will be accommodated through our existing eServices plug-in which means zero learning curve for the majority of our users.

You may be wondering what the heck is an XML file? You can think of XML as a raw data file that contains information from the appraisal report excluding the form image. The reason that you have been asked to deliver an XML file is because your lender client is probably going to sell the loan to Fannie Mae, and as part of their Loan Quality initiative, Fannie Mae will require both a PDF of the appraisal report along with an XML file. The XML can be further analyzed as part of Fannie Mae’s loan quality program.

Keep in mind there are many different flavors of XML. Fannie Mae is accepting ACI-XML as well as a version of XML that was developed by the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO), a not-for-profit subsidiary of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Per Fannie Mae, “effective on a date to be announced, but no earlier than July 1, 2010, for each loan delivered to Fannie Mae, sellers must submit electronic appraisal data in an acceptable XML format at least 24 hours prior to delivery of the loan to Fannie Mae.”

Do you need to do anything today? You may want to contact sales to confirm that your eServices subscription is current. In order to get ready to deliver to CDD, you can tell your clients with confidence that ACI, your software vendor, is an accepted delivery standard for Fannie Mae’s CDD platform. We’ll continue to keep you posted as any new developments unfold.