ZURICH, Jan. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Eurapco, a
strategic alliance of eight primarily mutual European insurers, and
B3i Services AG, a global industry-led blockchain initiative, have
announced the launch of Eurapco Unity, the first global operational
solution on blockchain infrastructure, enabling the transfer of
facultative risks within a network of companies.
Blockchain has been long touted as a revolutionary technology
with the potential to transform the insurance ecosystem by
automating processes, increasing efficiency, security, data
accuracy, fraud detection, and reducing
costs.
The Eurapco Board and its Chairman, Luca
Filippone, asked the General Manager of Eurapco,
Wilma de Bruijn, to identify an
opportunity for blockchain within the alliance. De Bruijn's first
decision was to create a workstream with a specific goal: identify
business cases across Eurapco partners where blockchain offers
improvements to existing processes, encourages innovation, and
helps gaining hands-on understanding of the
technology.
"Trust and transparency are fundamental values we cultivate in
the alliance and we needed to ensure these principles were further
translated into our operations. Exploring blockchain came as a
natural step in the creation of tangible and sustainable value for
our partners", said Wilma de
Bruijn.
Following in-depth market and technological research, Eurapco
selected Marine insurance and reinsurance as areas where blockchain
can bring concrete benefits by increasing transparency and
security, while significantly reducing administrative effort.
In December, Eurapco, together with its Partners, Achmea, La
Mobilière, Reale Group and B3i, delivered the MVP version of
Eurapco Unity, enabling the transfer of facultative risks in a
network of companies in the Marine Insurance.
Dieter Lammertz, Head of Marine
& Fine Art, la Mobilière stated, "A new world of digitalization
has opened up for us. Documents are quickly accessed and
transmitted to all partners. All data remains in the blockchain and
cannot be altered. I am convinced that we will generate
considerable time savings and am already excited about what this
system can achieve. In future, all accounts and claims handling
will also be managed in Unity, saving additional time and
resources."
"Eurapco is pioneering the adoption of B3i distributed ledger
technology (DLT) while pushing the boundaries of admin-free risk
transfer. The Unity project is just one example of a common DLT use
case, and a great showcase for other risk pools. Eurapco acts as a
framework enabler, establishing the rules and protocols to be
followed by members to share risks in full compliance, as
respective requirements are already embedded in the protocol. With
DLT removing the need for unnecessary administration, users can
focus on adding value," added Antonio di
Marzo, Head of Products at B3i.
John Carolin, B3i CEO commented,
"Eurapco has demonstrated a keen interest in understanding how it
can use DLT to better serve its members. This is the first bespoke
application built on B3i's Fluidity platform, and we are pleased to
see that this has significantly reduced application development
time, cost and complexity, enabling us to deliver the same for
further B3i partners and third-party application developers. We
look forward to further expanding Unity's functionality.
"Leading Eurapco Blockchain workstream is a great pleasure. We
couldn't have achieved this without the ongoing support of the
Eurapco Board, Wilma de Bruijn, B3i
and many other colleagues who I would like to sincerely thank for
their dedication. We are already looking forward to expanding Unity
into new business lines, smart contracts, additional insurers and
much more for 2021", concluded Ivan Lippa,
Sr. Programme Manager Eurapco.
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