Accounting giant
EY, software security company Guardtime, and a host of industry players have come together to develop a first-of-its kind blockchain platform for the marine insurance sector.
The global blockchain platform, launched in collaboration with A.P. Moller-Maersk, Accord, Microsoft, Willis Towers Watson, MS Amlin, and XL Catlin, was built on Microsoft Azure global cloud technology and designed to deliver significant value to the insurance industry, starting from its implementation in 2018.
The blockchain platform responds to the challenges of the marine insurance industry's complex international ecosystem by linking multiple parties – clients, brokers, insurers, and third parties – to distributed common ledgers that capture data about identities, risks, and exposures, and integrating this information with insurance contracts. This system ensures transparency, compliance, and accurate exposure management.
The platform has the capabilities to create and maintain asset data from multiple parties; link data to policy contracts; receive and act upon information that results in a pricing or a business process change; connect client assets, transactions, and payments; and capture and validate up-to-date first notification or loss of data.
Jonathan Zhao, EY Asia-Pacific insurance leader, said the platform unleashes the potential of blockchain to the insurance ecosystem.
“This solution is the first to apply blockchain’s transparency, security, and standardization to marine insurance and is ready for commercial use,” he said, adding that they are also looking forward to deploying the technology to other specialty insurance markets.
“Many insurers and regulators across the Asia-Pacific region are very keen to see the development of more fintech solutions tailored towards insurance companies,” Zhao said. “Insurtech has enormous potential when it comes to transforming and enhancing insurers’ operations efficiencies and controls, reducing costs, and improving the customer experience.”
Lars Henneberg, A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S head of risk and insurance, said blockchain technology can potentially facilitate a long-overdue development to the “currently far too tedious and frictional” insurance transactions.
“Insurers can use this blockchain platform to improve their capital and gain efficiencies, with increased transparency and reduced manual data entry or reconciliation and administration costs,” he said.
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