By Staff Writer
Chinese property and casualty insurance firm, People’s Insurance Company of China (PICC), has entered into a blockchain joint venture to overhaul legacy systems, digitize and streamline underwriting and claim management processes.
The company’s two partners are Shanghai-based blockchain firm VeChain and a risk assurance firm DNV GL.
The Chinese insurance company, with more than US$100 billion in assets, believes that blockchain technology can bring digital transformation, resulting in reduced turnaround time, premiums, prevent fraud and improve know-your-customer compliance and claim management.
The blockchain-based solutions will bring “digital transformation across the entirety of PICC,” said a statement released by the company on September 3, 2018.
“Insurance companies use legacy claim management systems that produce overwhelming paper trails on insufficiently validated data that make up the current policy underwriting process,” it said.
“The inefficiencies within data collection, verification, and auditing cause policies to be placed on bad actors leading to price increases on the behalf of all policy owners.”
The realization of advanced IoT devices and smart contracts within this industry will potentially bring “instant compensation” for the companies producing a much more profitable business model.
PICC chose VeChain because of their existing solutions with DNV GL catering to real problems within businesses and governments, it said.
VeChain’s public blockchain will work with assurance services of DNV GL to help the insurer “expand their current offerings, bringing true digital transformation to a now stagnant industry,” according to the statement.
“The role DNV GL plays is to ensure data integrity from the business operation perspective,” said George Kang, Greater China chief executive of DNV GL Business Assurance. “In conjunction with VeChainThor Platform, we will provide a robust digital trust platform to assist PICC with enhanced data management and efficient data processing.”
