Institutes RiskBlock™ Alliance picks Deloitte to speed blockchain apps devt., Canadian expansion

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The Institutes RiskBlock™ Alliance, a blockchain consortium of 31 risk management and insurance firms, has picked UK-incorporated global professional services organization Deloitte to assist in furthering its blockchain application and product development efforts.

Exploiting its industry-leading digital capabilities, Deloitte will assist the RiskBlock™ Alliance in implementing and testing several products that will be brought to market by the end of the year.

The organization will assist the alliance in expanding into Canada, the first piece of a strategic worldwide growth. The alliance, with the strategic support by Deloitte, will launch a legal entity in Canada over the next few months and start collaborating with Canadian-based property casualty and life/annuity insurers. With the expansion, the Institutes RiskBlock™ Alliance will be able to provide scalable blockchain solutions across the worldwide insurance industry.

Deloitte’s responsibilities, under this agreement, include methodology, prioritization and creation of multiple blockchain applications for RiskBlock Alliance members. The apps will deal with diverse facets of the insurance transaction lifecycle, from underwriting to claims processing.

Canopy, the industry’s first end-to-end reusable blockchain framework, will be used to provide each new application, which will concentrate on improving proficiency and lowering transaction expenses for the advantage of policyholders. Canopy is being developed exclusively for the alliance on R3’s Corda platform.

The Institutes RiskBlock™ Alliance president Christopher G. McDaniel said in a press release CoinReport received from Hill+Knowlton Strategies, Deloitte’s PR agency, “Deloitte has established itself as a leader in blockchain and distributed ledger technology and has strong global relationships with both blockchain and insurance organizations. It’s for those reasons that Deloitte makes an ideal collaborator for us as we build blockchain applications for the insurance industry around the world. We are excited to see what we can accomplish together.”

The alliance was initially launched in July last year. Deloitte has worked with the consortium since then. The selection of the professional services organization expands its scope considerably.

Deloitte Consulting LLP principal and financial services blockchain leader Linda Pawczuk commented on the occasion, “Our goal matches The Institutes’ own expectations—the platform will serve as the home base for all things insurtech for the global insurance industry in the years ahead. At Deloitte, we have 1,500 blockchain practitioners in 33 countries across 23 industries dedicated to discovering how distributed ledger technology can improve different areas of the economy. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to broaden our role globally and begin building concrete applications for the market.”

Deloitte Consulting LLP principal and insurance blockchain practice leader Ted Epps added, “The strategic value of the RiskBlock Alliance is its ability to connect a diverse set of insurance industry stakeholders through a shared network. The expansion effort our team at Deloitte is spearheading will accelerate the consortium’s global reach and take blockchain to the next level in the insurance industry—and financial services more broadly.”

The alliance is reportedly set to release blockchain-based applications, including a first notice of loss data-sharing process, a smart contract-enabled subrogation tool and a proof of insurance application. The tool will be developed by Deloitte and use smart contracts to simplify the netting of members’ payments and enhance the efficiency of claims processing payment and accounting.

McDaniel continued, “The RiskBlock Alliance isn’t concerned with theoretical experiments. We’re completely focused on rapidly delivering real production applications to the industry. With the help of Deloitte, we’re building out a virtual blockchain application factory that members can use immediately for real business needs.”

Image credit – Kai Pilger  (CC BY-SA 4.0)