The General Insurance Association of Japan is working with NEC to evaluate blockchain as a tool to improve efficiency. Eight un-named insurers are participating in an application for joint insurance policies where the cover for a single policy is syndicated across numerous insurers.
Extensive inter-company communication is required for joint insurance policies to ensure that each insurer is in sync as the available information changes. Hence, instead of numerous emails going back and forth, the proposal is to create a shared blockchain-verified data store. The aim is to share contract information without documents.
The organizations also see COVID-19 as requiring a review of current processes, especially for face-to-face procedures or reviewing written paperwork.
The participating insurers have not been mentioned, but three Japanese insurers – Tokio Marine, Sompo Japan and Mitsui Sumitomo – are more active in blockchain than others.
Tokio Marine is a founding member of the global B3i blockchain insurance platform. Two years ago, it was involved in a marine project with NTT Data. In turn, NTT Data has a Japanese blockchain trade consortium called TradeWaltz, where all three of the named insurers are members. Tokio Marine and SOMPO are also participants in the Singapore TradeTrust initiative.