Welcome to the second episode of our News Flash series, where we share the latest developments in the blockchain space. For today’s episode we are excited to present returning speaker Christopher McDaniel, president of the RiskBlock Alliance.

Chris will guide us through the release of Canopy 2.0, the new version of the RiskBlock Alliance’s blockchain framework, which will run on R3’s Corda Blockchain.

 

RiskBlock Alliance

The RiskBlock Alliance, which featured in one of our previous episodes (An Introduction to The RiskBlock Alliance), is an industry-led consortium comprised of insurance carriers, brokers and reinsurers focused on delivering blockchain solutions to the insurance industry. What sets it apart from other insurance consortiums is the fact it’s a not-for-profit organisation sponsored by The Institutes, an educational organisation focusing on the property and casualty space that has been around for over a century.

Since its founding last September, the RiskBlock Alliance has expanded significantly. It developed a relationship with LIMRA in the life annuity and retirement space and expects to expand in areas including group benefits and workers’ compensation.

 

The RiskBlock Alliance is built around three aspects.

* The consortium itself and its members, who are integral in ensuring the RiskBlock Alliance is for the industry and by the industry.

* Its blockchain framework, Canopy, a standardized set of blockchains that are reusable for many applications.

* Blockchain applications. The RiskBlock Alliance builds fifteen to twenty application on an annual basis on its Canopy framework.

 

Canopy

Before Canopy each company had to create its own blockchain for its applications. If a company decided to build a blockchain application utilising policy information, they created a policy blockchain. Then, if a different company built another application requiring policy information, they had to build a similar blockchain from scratch.

The RiskBlock Alliance’s solution to this is Canopy, a framework that makes it easier for companies to experiment with blockchain and create their own solutions. It provides a set of reusable blockchains, such as a policy or a claims blockchain, along with numerous applications that work on these standardized blockchains.

 

Canopy 2.0

Canopy 2.0 will be released in early September, along with a blockchain application for proof of insurance and one for first notice of loss in claims. It aims to become the framework that connects all blockchain applications together.

 

1. Universal framework

Canopy 2.0 will be the first universal version of Canopy. While the RiskBlock Alliance will continue building its own applications, Canopy 2.0 will be an open framework others can build upon. It will have the tools and components to allow others to cooperate with the RiskBlock Alliance and improve the framework by creating applications and expanding the framework itself. In that way Canopy 2.0 can grow beyond the areas it is currently focused on, making it the first true end-to-end blockchain insurance platform.

 

2. Back office connectivity

At the moment a lot of blockchain solutions ignore the problem of connecting back office systems with the blockchain, leading to a gap between blockchain applications and back office data. Canopy 2.