Why Blockchain for the Polkacover ecosystem
Insurance is traded in traditional ways, often manually and with several layers of intermediaries. The inefficiencies have resulted in most of the major insurance institutions taking a keen interest in blockchain technology with the hope it will provide a modern, more streamlined alternative. The McKinsey Panorama FinTech database currently registers over 200 blockchain-related solutions, of which about 20 provide use cases for insurers that go beyond payment transactions — either as specific applications or as base platforms.
Finally, even traditional insurance companies, such as AXA and Generali, have started to invest in blockchain applications and Allianz has just recently announced its successful pilot of a blockchain-based smart contract solution to automate catastrophe swap transactions. Within Dubai as well, Blockchain startups are being encourage as Dubai aims to be the Blockchain capital of the World by 2020.
The blockchain provide a decentralized ledger which allows data to be permanently stored without the possibility of fraud. With the growing importance data protection, the ability to control the data in this form dramatically affects the type of communication between consumers and businesses.
For us, we found blockchain was able to provide vast improvements over centralized systems in terms of CRM Management, cross-country scaling & payment solutions, data integrity, improved user experience with the option of efficient claims management as well. It gives superpowers to the insurance industry focusing on granular level of customer-segmentation, tailored products, predicting customer behavior, targeted customer service, and an overall enhanced customer journey.
Blockchain’s enablement of increased trust and transparency speaks to the heart of the insurance business
Smart contracts have the ability to be designed to be decision makers on insurance claim settlements (based on pre-underwritten fundamentals).
Groups of participants not individually eligible for the suitable insurance coverage might use the decentralized trust and autonomous processing smart contract capability of blockchains to self-insure the group by sharing risk at a reduced cost.
The secure storage of a policy holder’s information helps in removing the manual processes which are being followed where there is duplication of information (at the broker, insurance company and customer’s end) thus reducing data redundancy and reduce the possibility of misinformation. The public registry (and decentralized nature of blockchain) removes the possibility of loss of data over years.
Reduce administrative cost Blockchain may reduce administrative/operations cost through automated verification of policyholder identity and contract validity, auditable registration of claims and data.
Customer engagement. An important lever for improving customer engagement through blockchain lies in the area of personal data. Customers’ fears about losing control of personal data as soon as it is handed over to a company and their frustration with the need to repeat data entry processes can be addressed by a customer-controlled blockchain for identity verification (see KYC use case) or medical/health data. Personal data does not need to be stored on the blockchain; it remains on the user’s personal device.
