Policyholder risk management
In the current insurance business, disputes between insurance companies and policyholders occur from time to time, either because the policyholder provides false personal information to cheat insurance, or because of differences in the determination of exemption clauses when settling claims. The key to these problems lies in the lack of a reliable means of collecting and storing personal information.
With the advancement of national systematic projects such as the digitization of medical information and the personal credit system, more and more authoritative data sources are emerging, and if these data can be introduced and stored on the blockchain, they will become the digital identities of everyone, which are real and trustworthy, tamper-proof, synchronized in real time, and lifelong validity, and will be of great benefit for the risk management of the insureds.
The first is that the data on it is authentic and trustworthy, and synchronized in real time.
The first is to open up the data between different companies for cross-referencing, so that information such as duplicate insurance policies and historical claims can be found in time to identify high-risk users. Taking the example of the $40 million accidental injury insurance fraud in March this year, Zhou from Yangzhou was insured by more than a dozen life insurance companies and was not detected until manual underwriting. If every time he took out an insurance policy information was recorded in the blockchain, it could soon be discovered and timely measures taken.
The second is that introducing data from different industries into the blockchain can improve the accuracy and efficiency of underwriting and claims. To cite an example of critical illness insurance, if all the medical records of the policyholder, even those of immediate family members, can be accessed on the blockchain, there will be first-hand information about the policyholder's current physical condition, history of illness, and family history of illness, which can effectively eliminate the need to take out insurance with illnesses.
Risk supervision of insurance companies
In the operation of insurance companies, risks due to various reasons occur from time to time, and regulators can only take measures to audit beforehand or restrain afterward. However, as the front-end of the insurance business becomes increasingly open and the companies participating in the insurance market become more and more diversified, the need for ex post supervision is becoming more and more prominent. In the author's opinion, blockchain technology is one of the effective technological means to carry out supervision in the middle of the process. As long as the insurance company moves its daily operation process to the blockchain and develops a bookkeeping node (even if it is a read-only bookkeeping node) to the regulator, the regulator will be able to observe all the business movements of the insurance company in real time. For example, the flow of funds and the composition of investments, underwriting and claims data of products, major personnel and management operations, etc., without having to wait for the insurance company to declare them after the fact, so that possible business risks and irregularities can be detected in a timely manner.
On this basis, regulators can also use big data technology to analyze and forecast the nation's insurance market, so as to timely detect and prevent possible systemic risks, or to identify potential protection needs and trends, so as to better provide protection for the people.
At present, the first blockchain startup company in China, Abbotts Financial Technology Company, has launched its first project, concentric mutual aid, which takes network mutual aid as an entry point and continuously promotes the application and development of blockchain technology in China. The technology, through the blockchain and big data technology, eliminates the defects of the traditional network mutual aid model, and establishes an open and transparent new network mutual aid platform.