For today’s episode we are going to Munich with Bob Crozier, Head of Global Blockchain Centre of Competence at Allianz.

Bob shares his views on blockchain’s effect on the insurance industry and sheds some light on the Allianz approach to blockchain.

Blockchain in two minutes

A blockchain is a shared ledger record of transactions. When everyone in a network agrees a piece of information is correct, it is added to the ledger and the blockchain’s technology links each successive transaction to the previous one. The end result is an unbroken history of transactions that all parties can trust is correct.

 

Blockchain’s impact on the insurance industry

In August 2017 Bob wrote a blog post titled “how blockchain will impact insurance in 2017 and beyond”, where he examines how blockchain is changing how insurance companies operate on a fundamental level and the way insurers and customers relate in a shared economy.

This refers to the gradual change in which insurers realise that working together to solve common customer pain points requires rewriting the rules of business. Blockchain is the first time competitors have to work together to improve the industry and insurers have to learn to coexist in a world where the means of developing and delivering products or services, i.e. blockchain, require shared development and maintenance.

By working together Bob does not simply mean creating policies and exchanging risk, for which Lloyd’s of London already does a good job. Bob refers to solving more fundamental issues in the low value adding tasks that are a prerequisite for doing business. It is about solving common pain points and creating a customer-centric experience.

Bob’s post also introduces the concept of self-sovereign identity. Data privacy rules are increasingly granting more protection to consumers. Self-sovereign identity, therefore, refers to the way in which people can take control of their data and only give companies the data which is necessary for a product or service. This means that insurers will have to better calibrate the level of information required to provide a service, which will naturally lead to more customer-centric products and services. It is an opportunity for insurers to listen to customers and provide the services they want, in the right volume and in the right way.

If you are interested in Bob’s article, you can find it here.

 

Allianz and blockchain

Allianz is keen on experimenting with blockchain and Bob walks us through two recent projects.

 

1. Captive insurance blockchain

Captive insurance programmes, one of the most complicated aspects of commercial insurance, are established by multinational organisations which self-insure instead of purchasing insurance. This entails creating their own self-insurance program which pools together selected assets and insurance exposures from their global operations. They collect premiums from each operating company and pay out claims internationally as they arise. Due to the complexity of self-insuring, captive insurance companies use an insurer to effectively administer the program. Allianz is one of those insurers, having partnered with captive insurance companies to provide administration and compliance services utilising its international network.

Blockchain is integral in making this task simpler. The blockchain network automatically connects all the parties in the programme, including the captive management,