Shaun Crawford is the Global Vice Chair of Industry at EY and the chairman of Insurwave. It has been nearly a year since Insurwave has launched and since then it has won 8 industry awards. In this episode we discuss some of their exciting learnings from last year’s Insureblock’s podcast and their plans for the future.

 

What is blockchain?

In last year’s episode, Shaun gave us a technical definition of blockchain, this time he defines blockchain in a business optic. In the next few years we are going to see a 10x growth in volume of data produced due to 5G and IoT (internet of things) devices. To help manage all of this data from various sources, blockchain is the best technology to accomplish that. Blockchain can:

* Confirm the relevance, accuracy, accountability and authenticity of the data

* Ensure the data provenance of the data

* Provide reliability and security to the data

On the 25thof March, Shaun wrote a blog entitled, “Is 5G the missing piece in the corporate jigsaw” in which he discusses the enormous opportunity that 5G will bring in unlocking the potential for IoT

 

What is Insurwave?

Insurwave is effectively a pipe, that takes data from a shipping company, accessing that ton of data, finding relevance of that data, feeding it through to a broker, which then feeds into a reinsurer and a retro insurer in marine insurance. Basically, it brings capital closer to risk.

Insurers today are miles aware from where the actual risk is taken. Insurwave provides the relevant data to enable the insurer, the broker, and the reinsurer to come up with a better and effective product. This ultimately results in a much more effective business process.

 

Awards and more awards!

Since last summer Insurwave has won eight awards including the The Insurance Day Maritime Insurance Award. Shaun recognises that there are a lot of blockchain ideas, proof of concepts and promises for the future out in the market, in which a number of them will success. What Insurwave has achieved is that it has been live for 12 months now with Maersk. They have proven the worth of their core functionality and have built a lot more on top of it.

 

Evolution of the Insurwave team

When Insurwave first launched it had a small team – Maersk, one insurer, one reinsurer and one broker. Shaun stresses that their number one client has always been Maersk. Insurwave launched with basic functionality in July 2018 with Maersk but is now rolling out the full functionality for the whole hull and machinery by June 2019 for the next panel.

Insurance broker Miller’s has joined the Insurwave panel with a new reinsurer Gard and their retro panel. They are building out new nodes to accommodate for other shippers and brokers which they will be announcing in the near future.

 

Corda and technology platforms

Insurwave has used Corda open source to build its back-office platform and has built a lot of functionality in front end system technology as well. Shaun describes his experience of using Corda as being very good but for him the key is not so much about technology. The toughest challenge is about defining the right business process....