Insureblocks Blockchain & Smart Contracts In Insurance

In this exciting episode we had the great pleasure of interviewing Dan Fritz and Marco Cuomo to hear about the exciting blockchain work they are doing at the pharmaceutical giant, Novartis. In this podcast you will hear about the wealth of experience they have developed by building POCs using Hyperledger, Ethereum and Corda. Dan Fritz role is domain architect for supply chain. His department look at technologies that support supply chain business capabilities. They also look at emerging technologies and how they could be used to leverage and address the business needs. Marco Cuomo is the Applied Technology Innovation Manager and his team is responsible for bringing in new technology into Novartis. He has been looking at blockchain for the last 2 -  3 years and in addition to supply chain has been looking at good use cases for using the technology. Novartis is a global pharmaceutical company with about 100,000 employees in over 100 countries. It has a portfolio of prescription medicines, a generic division,

On the 12th of June 2019, Legal & General launched its Pension Risk Transfer blockchain reinsurance platform called “Estua-re”. Thomas Olunloyo, CEO at the Legal & General Reinsurance Company, based out of Bermuda, joined us in this podcast to share “Estua-re’s background and why blockchain was the best solution to answer his pension reinsurance challenge. His company is the global reinsurance hub of the Legal & General Group. It writes pension  risk transfer for reinsurance in multiple countries around the world. But focus primarily on the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland and Canada.   What is blockchain? Thomas thinks of blockchain in terms of the context in which they’re applying it with estua-re. Blockchain is a network with a number of participants that are here to sell risk and some who are here to take on risk. It allows these participants to have a single version of the truth built on consensus that exists at all times. For a business, like the Legal & General Reinsurance Company, that trades with contr

Shermin Voshmgir is Director of Cryptoeconomics Research Lab @ Vienna University of Economics and Founder of BlockchainHub which she started nearly 5 years ago. She recently published a book called the “Token Economy”. In this podcast Shermin is going to take us through what are tokens and the token economy. When researching blockchain, Shermin quickly realised that blockchain information was spread out on Reddit, Twitter, Ted Talks and numerous other places but there didn’t seem to be this one central repository of information. Shermin launched BlockchainHub to provide a comprenhsive source of information on blockchain. To find out more about Shermin you can check out her site Shermin.net.   What is blockchain? Blockchain is the driving force of the next generation internet, often referred to as Web 3.0. It’s not a front-end revolution it’s a change around the data structures in the back end of the internet.  Blockchain allows us to have a universal state layer of who did what and who owned what in terms

In June 2019, the CRO (Credit Risk Officers) Forum, published the “Insurance and distributed ledger technology – a risk manager’s perspective” white paper as a practical tool for risk managers to accelerate the accomplishment of the productive phase of DLT. For this podcast we are joined by Dr. Sebastian Rath, Principal Risk Officer at NN Group, and with Gian Luca de Marchi, CRO at Unipol Group. Sebastian and Gian Luca aren’t here on behalf of the CRO Forum but are pleased to discuss their views on DLT while sharing some of the CRO Forum DLT paper content.   What is blockchain? A distributed ledger can be considered as a database that is distributed across several independent computing devices where changes to data are protected and manged by cryptography and consensus. This in turn provides guarantees that the data cannot be tampered with and that all parties have identical copies that can be considered as a reliable single source of truth. The functionality of a distributed ledger system can be enhanced

Antony Welfare is the Managing Director of Luxoft, which is part of DXC Technology and has accumulated a wealth of experience on blockchain across industries. He recently published the book Commercializing Blockchain whose content we will be discussing in this podcast. Antony is interested in real blockchain applications and is all about commercializing blockchain - using blockchain in a commercial business or a government to add value efficiency, trust, and a lot more which is discussed in this podcast.   What is blockchain? Blockchain itself is just a technology. It's just a set of rules and principles that you can put into code. It is an enabler for trust and transparency in any network or business or community, in government, where data and information that's transferred can be more trusted and transparent. Blockchain circumvents all the modern issues we presently have around the reconciliation of data, auditing it and verifying it. Blockchain is fundamentally about trust and transparency. How does bloc

Heather Dahl is the CEO of Sovrin, one of the leading self-sovereign identity solutions. In this podcast we discuss how identity has evolved from the offline world, to the limitations of it being online in the internet and finally to the opportunities it brings in a blockchain world.   What is blockchain? Heather Dahl looks at blockchain as one of the technologies tools that we have today. From her perspective we should ask ourselves - are you seeking a solution that provides a decentralised network, meaning that you're running a large number of diverse validators or nodes around the world that are run by different organisations that are censorship resistant, that helped build redundancy? Is that something you want that provides governance where no one organisation or company or government runs that network? If that's something you want, blockchain technology brings that decentralised, diverse set of nodes to run a blockchain solution. From an identity standpoint is do you need interoperability with your id

TradeLens is a digital platform that empowers businesses and authorities along the supply chain with a single, secure source of shipping data, enabling more efficient global trade. Join us and Daniel Wilson, director of business development at TradeLens / Maersk and Juan-Jose Ruiz, Head of Strategy & Business Development at TradeLens / IBM to find out more about the exiciting TradeLens platform. Daniel and Juan are jointly responsible for building out the investment case, as well as overseeing and implementing TradeLens mid to long term strategy, and managing third party engagements.   What is blockchain? Today’s traditional ways of storing data, whether cloud native or locally are great if you're able to trust with absolute surety, that the people and the organisations and the systems managing those data will do so essentially, with impunity. You have no risk that the data stored there and the systems will have any way of being challenged or corrupted. However, we all know that these systems aren't perfec

Are hybrid blockchains the silver bullet for enterprises wanting to operate in the blockchain world? Join us and Ben Jessel, Head of Growth at Kadena, as we discuss the merits of hybrid blockchains that take on the best of both permissioned and public blockchains.   What is blockchain? A blockchain is a mechanism to have an immutable record. That record can be a record of ownership record or a record of data that can be shared by everyone. It is distributed, which means there's no single owner. Anyone can write to that blockchain and it iss crypto graphically secured, which means that it is tamper proof. There are two forms of blockchains. Public and private blockchains, which really is a determinant on how the users of a blockchain are permitted to collaborate on that blockchain itself.   About Kadena Kadena is a blockchain organisation whose mission is to be the first blockchain there's actually ready for business. Will Martino and Stuart Popejoy are the co-founders of Kadena. Will Martino played a pi

Defining and understanding what is blockchain is a difficult task in itself. Michel Rauchs published a white paper entitled “Distributed Ledger Technology Systems – A Conceptual Framework” whilst he was at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. to help clarify all the concepts in DLT systems and to provide a framework in understanding those systems.   About Michel Rauchs Michel got interested in Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies about 5 years ago and then decided to write a master thesis about the evolution of the Bitcoin business ecosystem. For his thesis he monitored the evolution of this ecosystem by taking a data set of 500 different companies, projects and organisations over a 5 year period. Joined the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance to work full time as a researcher of the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem. He has now recently left the Cambridge Centre to set himself up as an independent consultant at Paradigma.     What is blockchain? Michel concedes that answ

Dr. Marcus Schmalbach is the CEO and co-founder of Ryskex, a provider of a blockchain-based ecosystem for alternative risk transfers and innovative insurance solutions. In this podcast we discuss Risk Transfer 2.0 from a perspective of how to use blockchain and AI solutions for new and emerging risks.   What is blockchain? Candidly, Marcus, Googled what is blockchain to get the following definition: “a decentralised distributed and public digital ledger that is use to record transactions across many computers”. However from his personal point of view, blockchain is an upcoming and interesting technology for the insurance market that will have a great impact on that industry.   What is Ryskex and what is its vision? Ryskex stands for risk exchange. It offers a hedging platform focusing on emergent and non-insurable risk in a b2b ecosystem. They bring together risk managers of traditional insurance companies or captive owning companies and institutional investors who have a risk appetite. Ryskex uses both b

Dustin Helland is blockchain product strategy and implementation manager at State Farm. In this exciting episode he talks to us about the auto claims subrogation implementation on blockchain by State Farm and USAA. What is interesting about this implementation is that it was done on a Quorum blockchain, which is a first on Insureblocks.   What is blockchain? Blockchain is a distributed ledger, which enables members of a business network to execute transactions in a peer to peer fashion. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) essentially means that each of the network participants has a copy of the shared information. And by leveraging some complicated mathematical algorithms, the blockchain technology ensures that each of the participants can trust that the copy they have, or have access to, is the same as all the others. What this means is that when each of the participants can trust the information that they have, it allows them to perform business transactions in a peer to peer fashion. Rather than dependi

In this podcast we are joined by Kevin Leuthardt who wrote an interesting article on this subject earlier this year where he analyses the use of governance from a business network layer, protocol layer and data layer for scaling blockchain consortia. Kevin Leuthardt is the cofounder of KSquared which works with start-ups across industries and technologies. He is a tax lawyer and is involved in the European Blockchain Association within the Governance Working Group.   What is blockchain? Kevin sees blockchain as a foundational technology. From a technical standpoint it’s a shared synchronised data ledger which is encrypted and comes with the potential of disintermediation, automation and providing a single source of truth. Automation comes through the use of smart contracts. What Kevin finds the most exciting about blockchain is that it brings about the so called competition paradox where competitors can work together to unlock new opportunities.   The article - Successful scaling of blockchain consortia t

Trent McConaghy grew up on a farm in rural Canada. He did AI research for 20 years including running 2 startups and a PhD. For the last 5 years he has been focused on blockchain and in particular on Ocean Protocol which he has co-founded.. Ocean Protocol is a protocol whose mission is to unlock data for the broad benefit of society. Data is becoming increasingly important and influential throughout the world, ensuring that the opportunities to access data are equalised is the aim of Ocean Protocol. What is blockchain? Blockchain at its heart is a technology, just as the internal combustion engine or a computer. The internal combustion engine combined with oil unlocked mobile transport in a big way. Similarly blockchain unloads a whole new set of possibilities that we haven’t seen before. At the very heart, it is simply a database. However its a database with very specific characteristics: Decentralised: no single entity owns or controls it Immutable Concept of ownership if you have the private key to i

Najib Rehman, Data Strategy Lead, at FramaTrust and Raja Sharif, CEO and Founder of FarmaTrust join us in this exciting podcast on how they use AI and blockchain technology in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry to help resolve some of its problems.   What is blockchain? Blockchain is essentially a database that is distributed for all relevant parties to have access and visibility. Where it differs from traditional databases is that it doesn’t have a sole controller. With blockchain if all the parties have an agreement, a consensus around what the distributed dataset looks liken, then it’s very difficult to game the system. Blockchain makes it easier to identify the bad actors.   Fraud & challenges in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry The World Health Organisation estimates that up to 700,000 people die every year due to complications caused by counterfeit Tuberculosis and Malaria vaccines. PWC estimates that counterfeit pharmaceutical is a $200bn annual business. This is quite a significa

Managers in enterprises or start-up founders all have to go through a framework in order to unlock the necessary investment for their blockchain projects. Understanding that process and what it entails is key. Areiel Wolanow is managing director of Finserv Experts, expert advisor to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain amongst many other blockchain advisory and non-exec positions. In this podcast he takes us through the commonalities between successful and failed blockchain projects before building a framework for requesting investment for a blockchain project.   What is blockchain? Blockchain is an enabling technology. It allows multiple separate legal parties to share a single version of data and keep that data in synch between themselves. Thus, removing the need to reconcile different versions of data between themselves.   Journey to blockchain In early 2014, Areiel was running IBM’s financial services practice for East Africa based out of Nairobi. 90% of the Ethiopian commodity exchange is wi

Jamie Burke is the founder & CEO of Outlier Ventures. He also is a pioneer of the “Convergence Thesis”, where blockchain is foundational to Web 3.0 a more decentralised and automated future. In this podcast we discuss how we are starting to see the emergence of a “convergence ecosystem” that involves blockchain, AI, IOT, big data and robotics that will help to build new markets that are open-source, distributed, decentralised, automated and tokenised.   About Jamie Burke & Outlier Ventures Jamie has a background in digital innovation and change management within large corporations. Prior to founding Outlier Ventures, Europe’s first blockchain venture platform he was an angel investor. Founded in 2014, Outlier Ventures is a venture platform focused on building the infrastructure for the next phase of the Internet. Their investment philosophy is based around the idea of the Convergence Ecosystem. They view blockchains and other decentralised tools like tokens as a new data layer enabling other technologies l

Antony Elliott, is Chairman at B3i and Group Head of Business Transformation at Zurich Insurance.  In this podcast we discussed innovation in the insurance industry, blockchain as part of the new stack, but also what he feels were the lessons learnt at B3i and what his aspirations are for it.  At Zurich Insurance, Antony is focused on making the organization more effective, efficient and customer centric. As he suggests, his role at B3i has a similar focus except at an industry-level. Thus, his dual roles allow him the ability to drive transformation at a group and industry-level; an opportunity few have!   What is blockchain? According to Antony, blockchain is a tamper proof protocol that allows information to be shared across a distributed platform. From an insurance perspective, blockchain permits better allocation of capital to risks by allowing mutually distrusting parties to be part of the same network and extract benefits from referring to a single source of truth.   B3i from Antony’s perspective B3

On the 15th of May of this year, law firm Clyde & Co launched an off-the-shelf connected parametric insurance contract for use by insurers. In this episode, Walid catches up with Lee Bacon, partner at Clyde & Co and co-founder of Clyde Code. Lee makes a repeat appearance to discuss connected contracts and Clyde Code, which is a consultancy unit focused on blockchain and smart contracts within Clyde & Co.  Lee highlights that insurance is a core focus of Clyde & Co and together with other partners at the firm, he began exploring blockchain in late 2015.   What is blockchain? From a non-technical perspective, blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology (DLT) which depending on its guises can be either a public permission-based system or for enterprises as a private kind of ring-fence system. It’s an enabling technology which enables parties to have access to the same data at the same time with an element of trust that the data is of the type and format that all parties can take comfort that they hav

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 eno

Patrick Schmid has a Phd in Economics and is the Vice President of RiskStream Collaborative (previously known as the RiskBlock Alliance). In this fascinating episode he provides an expert opinion and process for calculating ROI for blockchain applications. This is a must listen episode for anyone looking to develop blockchain solutions and need a functioning model to be able to calculate expected ROI.   What is blockchain? Patrick proposed two definitions: Formal definition Blockchain is a distributed ledger that maintains a constantly growing list of chronologically added records in the form of blocks. Within each block the data (e.g. transactional data or smart contracts) is confirmed and verified through this decentralised consensus process. This process removes the need for an intermediary to be involved in verifying and confirming transactions. Therefore, it establishes trust without the usage of a centralised authority. This is why, blockchain is often referenced at the trust machine. It is the decent