How to maximize the value of blockchain technology implementation? Some people believe that, on the basis of relative decentralization, in order to realize the detokenized value of blockchain, it is necessary to use other products with value converging with virtual currency. In other words, new hub value products must be found to replace the position of virtual currency in blockchain technology, so as to revitalize the blockchain system after coin removal.
In this information age, there are a variety of value products that can replace virtual currency, but there are only a few products that can give full play to the function system of blockchain technology. Among the fields where these value products are located, the insurance industry is one of the fields where blockchain has landed.
Highly compatible, blockchain + insurance reconstructs the future of insurance industry
As the underlying logic of the digital era, blockchain needs to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each business link in the insurance industry in the process of integration with the insurance industry, and then make use of the characteristics of blockchain technology to maximize the advantages and avoid the disadvantages, so as to achieve a highly compatible relationship between blockchain and insurance industry.
First of all, from the traditional insurance industry, the insurance industry is a contractual concentrated fund for the economic interests of the insured to compensate the industry. In the insurance business process, insurance buyers and sellers need to sign insurance contracts to protect the interests of both parties. But as a place to sign a contract between the seller and the buyer of the insurance market, concentrated and dispersed the intangible tangible offline market online market, because in the current market environment centralized phenomenon such as serious, platform user information, and even appeared when policy-holder interest after damage, trying to get compensation according to law is blocked by agreement contract.
The development and application of blockchain technology continue to mature, so that the voice of blockchain technology landing in the insurance industry is increasingly high. The possibility of the combination of blockchain and insurance may usher in a great era of change for the insurance industry.
1. Smart contract Smart contract was first proposed by legal scholar Nick Szabo. Smart contract is a set of digitally defined commitments that can be enforced by contract participants. In the blockchain, smart contracts are used to guarantee the fairness of both parties in the transaction. When both parties sign a smart contract, the promiser needs to add the public fund account into the contract as the compensation reserve fund. The verification node will initiate the smart contract until the expiration of the contract, and the locked compensation amount cannot be used as other transaction funds in the user account.
When the promised party falls short of funds or loses funds, the smart contract forces the money added to the open fund account to be paid to the insured person as compensation. The enforcement of smart contracts in blockchain + insurance can effectively reduce the problem of “old guard” in the traditional insurance industry.
2. Customized insurance business. In the traditional insurance industry, although there are many insurance businesses such as life insurance, accident insurance, auto insurance, property insurance and so on, the content of most of the vertical insurance services is more homogenized. At present, the insurance project that policy-holder can choose is available on insurance market, already very hard satisfy the consumption that demand tends diversification. The implementation of blockchain into the insurance industry can not only solve the single business problem of the central platform, but also enable various enterprises in the insurance industry to customize personalized insurance services for consumers with different needs through the data sharing mechanism.
In the current market environment, thousands of blockchain insurance business scenarios will be increasingly diversified, which can be the interest relationship between C-end users, the contract signed between C-end users and B-end enterprises, or the cooperation terms between B-end enterprises and B-end enterprises. Insurance companies can perform different insurance liabilities according to smart contracts in different scenarios, and insurance users can obtain corresponding compensation for losses through the enforcement of smart contracts. For example, in the life insurance contract, the insured can adjust the insurance plan according to their own risk status through blockchain insurance.
3. Traceability of blockchain. The existing ground block chain chain are mainly in the form of public, private, chain and chain alliance three, in the era of the block chain, although different areas of the enterprise can make insurance business between us, but in the process of insurance, its business chain elongated continually, not only the insurance unit price was up, and after policy-holder interest is damaged, the insurance company of business chain mutual shuffle. The traceability of blockchain technology can not only help each insurance enterprise in the alliance chain to communicate with each other, but also shorten the business chain, so that the insured can quickly find the source platform providing insurance services when their interests are damaged and obtain corresponding compensation through the contract.
In aviation insurance, for example, boat idea and delayed risk usually when passengers to purchase tickets or check-in starts to buy, and through a third party platform to buy insurance, in case of interests is damaged, the consumer need through the platform to appeal to a third party, and then apply to the insurance company authorized by a third party platform, only after the approval to delay passengers to compensate for the losses. More recently, French insurance giant AXA has offered airline passengers automatic compensation for flight delays through the public blockchain of Ethereum. As early as last September, Ernst & Young joined hands with blockchain company Guardtime to create the world’s first shipping insurance blockchain platform by connecting insurance customers, insurance brokers, insurance companies and third-party institutions through distributed ledger accounts…
4. High degree of transparency and participation. In the traditional insurance industry, users often fail to establish trust with insurance companies due to personal data security issues. And customer data is the basis for insurance companies to survive in the market. The integration of blockchain technology and the insurance industry can not only establish a blockchain verification system for users, but also ensure the security of personal information through encryption algorithms. The blockchain also allows users to manage their personal data and cross-platform management of multi-party transaction data.
Blockchain insurance: The agony of Token
After the implementation of blockchain in the insurance industry, the future industry structure of the insurance industry has been rebuilt and the insurance industry has a broader market prospect in the future development. However, in the current market, insurance companies still face the problem of how to solve the Token mechanism during the implementation of blockchain.
Tokens are meant to be temporary tokens for visitors to authenticate their identity on a computer. In blockchain, tokens are the central product of the value of all people in the chain, including merchants and users. However, from the perspective of blockchain insurance companies in the current market, the replacement of virtual currency by the insurance industry in Token mechanism is not perfect.
France’s Axa Insurance, for example, has adopted the Ethereum public blockchain to unify transactions for its users with a smart contract insurance product called Fizzy. But in the case of the product, Axa did not publicly say whether the delay payment was sent to the policyholder’s relevant account in cryptocurrency or some other form of value substitute. This means that axa has not solved or found a Token that can replace virtual currency (i.e., transaction pass, the same below), although it has linked related businesses in the insurance industry with blockchain to bring efficient and secure compensation services to users.
Token, as the unattainable core value product of blockchain technology, is a key technology node to ensure that blockchain technology can maximize the decentralized concept of blockchain in the application process, and bring fair and fair trading experience to traders on the blockchain. In the field of digital currency, tokens are translated into tokens and serve as circulation products in the whole blockchain in the application of digital currency blockchain, becoming the main rallying point for consensus among all nodes in the chain. However, in the insurance industry, Token mechanism is difficult to implement for two reasons.
On the one hand, the insurance blockchain lacks a unified Token. The insurance industry is a multi-dimensional network with complex structure. Insurance transactions not only involve the interests of the insured, the guarantor and the insurance company, but also the diversity and complexity of insurance business will be a challenge to the settlement and settlement of smart contracts. While the implementation of blockchain in the insurance field can reduce guarantee, insurance brokers and other links and shorten the insurance transaction process through the credit mechanism of blockchain. However, in order to regard insurance interests as the central value hub of the whole insurance industry, various insurance companies still cannot reach an agreement on smart contracts. The insurance Token cannot be circulated, which means that the insurance blockchain with coin reduction is not realistic.
On the other hand, the contradiction between decentralization and diversification. For all Internet industries, the biggest significance of “blockchain +” is to realize decentralization and promote the sound development of the whole industry by realizing fairness and justice of enterprises. However, for the current insurance industry, the insurance industry still cannot realize the use of unified Token. In the current blockchain market, no matter axa insurance on the public chain or B3i Alliance on the alliance chain, the on-chain businesses of these insurance companies are relatively single, while diversified insurance products are still issued by various insurance companies alone, and their business combination is superficial. The diversity of insurance business cannot be realized with a unified Token, so the decentralized concept of blockchain insurance is difficult to realize.
Blockchain deepwater area, the insurance industry still needs to practice skills
As the voice of blockchain landing in the insurance industry is rising, the cases of domestic insurance companies and related institutions combining with blockchain technology are gradually increasing. In May 2018, Zhongan Technology teamed up with a number of insurance companies to create anlian cloud platform to jointly build and share blockchain technology. However, from the perspective of the degree of technology combination, the current combination of blockchain technology in the insurance industry is still only superficial, and the business depth of the insurance industry is still very limited after the implementation of blockchain in the insurance industry.
In the existing blockchain insurance application cases, the characteristics of blockchain decentralization and consensus mechanism are not obvious, but more like an open central platform. Although small and medium-sized enterprises attached to the platform can achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase in a short period of time, they can develop rapidly. However, in the long run, blockchain alliance is more like a means for alliance central enterprises to attract small and medium-sized enterprises in order to expand and reduce the pressure of competition in the industry, and gradually form a market pattern of big fish eating small fish. In this advanced era of blockchain in which alliance chain has become a major trend, insurance companies in alliance will increase day by day, and the market bubble of blockchain alliance is forming.
In general, the application of blockchain technology may have been slowly mature, but after the call of blockchain landing, there may be a new landing bubble. Block chain + insurance although able to reshape the insurance industry structure in theory, but to make the various insurance companies in the insurance industry to reach a consensus and establish a unified insurance Token, you will need to combine the advantages of each enterprise business, especially its business role play to maximize, and provide for insured and the beneficiary by the insured, open, fair trading space.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110