A couple of years ago, ACORD developed a new generation of personal lines application forms. They chose to adopt a setup similar to commercial lines - reduce the amount of times you need to re-enter the applicant's basic information when submitting multiple coverage types together, like auto and home. It's designed to work best for a package policy, but would also work for single policies. The general questions that appear on all the applications were also consolidated (employment, personal info, general questions). The Homeowners and Dwelling applications were also combined together into a single application - the Residential Section. The Acord 88 is the Applicant section with information common to multiple coverage lines. The 89 is the Residential Application. Because of issues with length and acceptance of the 88 & 89 forms, the 80 (Homeowners) was re-introduced at the end of 2009. The new forms haven't made it into TAM yet (slated for 11.0 I believe), but are available in EPIC.
I've attached the 88 (Applicant Section), 89, (Residential), 80 (homeowners), 90-CO (Auto). The 90 is Colorado's version. This application has been updated to match with the 88, so it has little insured information, like address. The Colorado version is representative of most states' auto apps - other states have some additional coverage options (e.g. PIP) and different legal notifications.
The big question is how agents (and carriers) feel about the new setup. Does it work? Is it better? Should they go back to individual applications? If they are kept, there are some tweaks to be made to them, but the overall question is how well the format works. There are a lot of new coverage items listed on the applications so that there are fewer company unique codes needed and so more coverage detail can be shown on downloaded policies. This makes them longer.
If you have lengthy response, you can also submit it directly to ACORD, formsfeedback@acord.org.
My whole concern would be the transition of old form to new form on downloads. I remember years ago having to wait on carriers adopting the new forms before we could do upgrades. Since nothing in our personal lines is submitted on paper applications, the length really doesn't matter.
Some carriers, like MetLife have already adopted the new ones. Can't speak to how their download works with it though.