The Institutes launches U.S. blockchain consortium

Servers and hard drives stand inside pod one of IBM's Softlayer data center in Dallas.
Servers and hard drives inside pod one of IBM's Softlayer data center in Dallas, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014. Photographer: Ben Torres/Bloomberg

The Institutes, a provider of educational materials and consulting for the P&C industry, is launching a blockchain consortium with the goal of spurring development of use cases for the technology in the U.S.

The RiskBlock Alliance has a goal of 30 members across the P&C value chain. Potential use cases envisioned by The Institutes include proof of insurance, subrogation, data sharing and risk registries, and parametric insurance.

The Institutes has been getting cozier with blockchain this year. It was a founding member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, a cross-industry effort to create protocols, standards and governance models for the use of private Ethereum networks. Ethereum is one of several distributed computing platforms that make up the blockchain ecosystem.

“The risk management and insurance industry is faced with an increasingly fast moving, innovative and data-driven environment,” said Peter L. Miller, CPCU, president and CEO of The Institutes. “Insurers have varying levels of knowledge about blockchain, and the key to making this technology work in our industry is ensuring that members work together. This is why The Institutes have formed the consortium.”

Deloitte is already collaborating with RiskBlock, with more members to be announced.

Digital disruption is spurring insurers to collaborate more than ever across company lines to explore emerging technologies. The Institutes' move comes about a year after five insurers in Europe formed the blockchain alliance B3i. In addition, the insurtech Roost and Willis Towers Watson are recruiting insurers for a Home Telematics Consortium that will aggregate data and develop products around smart-home devices.

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Blockchain Data sharing Telematics Property and casualty insurance Deloitte Willis Towers Watson
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