The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative ran a study to prove whether its Mortality Monitor is a viable insurance blockchain use case. The purpose is for insurers is to share their information about a policyholder’s death with other insurers. A key aim of the enterprise blockchain solution would be to lower costs in the Life and Annuity sector and achieve a faster payout on death. RiskStream has more than 40 carriers in its blockchain consortium.
By exploring five years of data across just three carriers, the study found that 4% of deceased policyholders had products with multiple providers, a very high figure for just three insurers. That said, in a 2018 population of 330 million, there were 267 million life insurance policies.
Furthermore, in the study where there were two policies, there was a median gap of 55 days between the payout on the first policy and second policy, implying that the second insurer found out about the death rather late. By sharing the data about the death between insurers, that gap could be bridged and reduce the duplication of work required across insurers to collect death data.
“A death claim beneficiary often has to go through significant effort reporting claims with each carrier for every line of business when they are going through one of their hardest times in life. Our members want to improve this experience industrywide,” said Bill Keogh, Non-Executive Chair of the RiskStream Collaborative.
While the study doesn’t mention which insurers participated, late last year Nationwide, Prudential Financial, and Securian Financial took part in a proof of concept for the Mortality Monitor solution.
Riskstream has multiple projects on the go. The First Notice of Loss solution for auto accidents is expected to go into shadow production in Q3. Its also exploring use cases for Surety Bonds and Proof of Insurance, amongst others.
