Blockchain is already shaking things up…

Chris Rathborne — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 04:42:53 +0000

Blockchain is either the first or second most popular phrase these days when discussing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and it is surprising how few actually know about the technology itself, let alone the applications that it has for business. To explain the technology, Blockchain is a series of transactions or records on a ledger. Which might sound simple enough and not exactly revolutionary, but in the case of blockchain technology, the ledger is both encrypted and shared (or distributed) across a set of peers or networks. As records are created, added, maintained or deleted they include the typical information of a ledger in the encrypted format and then added to the chain across the shared versions. Its the sharing aspect that adds more security as there is no single point of control on the blockchain and a single point of failure. The capability of corrupting the blockchain would take considerable computing power as it would need to infiltrate the entire network rather than a single point.

Courtesy: Blockgeeks

If they are not already, then government agencies should be throwing themselves at Blockchain for the vast number of applications it has for them. Particularly when considering the need to transfer and manage sensitive data regarding their relative public sectors. Imagine not requiring property title insurance (try this web-site to get the best one) because secure blockchain records can maintain a chronology of every aspect of the title in the form of a crypto ledger. The same distributed ledger technology can be used in almost any area of government for health records, accounts, local government and even voting polls which can include instantly auditable records for live voting results.

Insurance companies have great potential to use blockchain in their businesses, particularly when moving money overseas, paying for claims and keeping records and their own data. They can use the technology in either a private or public blockchain which would depend on the business case. They can use it where multiple parties share and update data, require verification and trust between the parties, where intermediaries add costs (two insurers already are building blockchain for their intermediated businesses which will be launched in 2018), where the interactions are time sensitive and when the transactions depend on each other. These scenarios occur in almost every facet of insurance and will most certainly be the chosen method of the future Peer to Peer insurance models that we see emerging already.

Blockchain is going to have a significant impact on the agricultural industry, particularly where the industry is working on managing and monitoring the ‘farm to fork’ concept and every part of the supply chain. By monitoring the supply chain, every stakeholder from the farmer, the distributors and the customers will know more about the food, where it has come from and how it was treated. The potential to then implement more technology via ‘smart farms’ becomes an even greater opportunity.

The potential to impact healthcare is perhaps one of the most significant, from patient information data which can be shared among medical practitioners, government agencies (Medicare) and then health funds. Billing management has often been an issue in the industry and blockchain technology can simplify and improve that with the management of the ledger. The ledger can move data, billing and payment information among the ledger within seconds as the transactions are updated.

The application of Blockchain is going to be around for a while, and analysts are predicting that this is only the start of how much it is going to disrupt many industries.

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Insurtech: PWC presents – Reinventing Insurance, one step at a time

Chris Rathborne — Sat, 12 Aug 2017 02:18:36 +0000

You can download the article from PWC which has recently published an article focusing on the changes that technology has brought, or is bringing to the insurance industry recently. Its a great paper, insightful and certainly brings together a lot of the emerging new technology innovations that bringing about change in the insurance industry. Among the disruptors are the Fintech businesses that are launching new businesses and new business models. These innovations range from the delivery of their product using technology, to processes behind their systems often using Artificial Intelligence and even the methods they use to fund their business with peer to peer funding.

Its really when you see the new startups on chart form that the volume of new businesses become apparent and the degree of change that is underway. Some of the new business like Trov, which is becoming a well known tech insurance brand offering on demand insurance via your mobile phone. Its easy to use and seems overly simple. A number of use case studies already indicate that their biggest challenge to get people on board is to the trust and engagement of users who will find it well to easy, almost too easy which casts some doubt on the model altogether.

PWC – InsureTech Startups

The use of Artificial Intelligence has already crept into our everyday lives with applications such as Apple’s Siri, Googles Assistant, Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana answering questions and performing basic automation to schedule, search, start processes and remind ourselves. PWC calls it Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and they offer a range of functions the insurance industry can learn from such as risk profiling, asking and answering questions by means of launching a new set of processes based on a set of simple answers. The article is correct however when considering a risk of such automation and it can be easy to see a circumstance where a system executes a new set of unwanted processes and is unable to ‘second guess’ itself. This can be anything from purging mass amounts of data to inadvertently sending information outside to another system because it is following a set of programmed processes.

Their assessment of the limitations experienced when running off legacy systems is also very clear with limitations on access to new markets. Of course simply removing such old systems is easier said than done, but the challenges between killing off a legacy system and moving to a new one is often as daunting as starting a new one from scratch. The paper touches on Cyber risk which has catapulted to the forefront of all businesses and this includes protection and mitigation of their own data assets to finding the right insurance product to account for a loss when the risk management processes fail. The insurance industry itself is also moving on this market, sometimes not quickly enough, to deliver new products and packages for this risk as well. The article indicates the rankings of such risks, albeit from a New Zealand perspective, however the changes could easily be applied to the Australian market.

Here is the article NZ InsureTech

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Blockchain is already shaking things up…

Insurtech: PWC presents – Reinventing Insurance, one step at a time