B3i, a platform and protocol to address critical insurance industry needs, today announced the release of v1.0 of their Property Catastrophe Excess of Loss Reinsurance product on the Corda Network.
This follows the creation of the first Corda 4.0 node on the global Corda Network announced by B3i earlier this month.
Corda is open source blockchain platform built for business, developed by enterprise software firm R3. Corda enables businesses to transact directly and in strict privacy using smart contracts, reducing transaction and record-keeping costs and streamlining business operations.
What is B3i Cat XoL Release 1.0?
Designed to make insurance faster, cheaper, and better, B3i has worked with the market to test and build its first product. The product improves the execution of the risk transfer process by reducing friction across the value chain, end-to-end.
This product, designed for the insurance market, is for brokers advising and assisting clients, for insurance companies managing their risks, and for reinsurers providing capital. B3i Cat XoL allows these parties to interact, negotiate and place risk more securely and efficiently.
The application will offer key benefits for its users, over the traditional process:
- Critically Reducing Effort in the manual activities required to place, renew and manage a CAT XoL treaty. For example, removing the need to replicate communication of the submission package to each participant in the treaty.
- Improving Contract Certainty as all parties share a common view of the state of the contract at all points in time. ‘First the deal, then the detail’ will become a thing of the past.
- Reducing Operational Risk due to the elimination of double keying, (trans)coding and management of the information currently supporting the placement of CAT XoL treaties.
Why B3i Cat XoL is Right for the Market?
The B3i Cat XoL product is a ‘first of its kind’ proposition which provides a market-wide, integrated network of B3i V1.0 nodes. Integrating brokers with insurers and reinsurers, this provides the participants with dedicated infrastructure for risk transfer execution, where data is not only exchanged but also notarised and certified.
The application has also been designed and developed to enable customers to integrate with their existing legacy products.
As all parties share one version of the truth, operational risks are significantly reduced, benefitting all market participants. Large companies further benefit from being able to manage their intra-group reinsurance across many different legal entities, in different countries. The platform can also manage retrocessions as well as treaty reinsurance programs.
“B3i is shipping its first application and this is our first opportunity to share with the wider market, not only the Cat XoL application, but also the wider infrastructure we have built to date. he importance of this release is fundamental in delivering to the insurance market the ability for seamless negotiation, efficient placement and contract certainty on a distributed platform that allows parties to retain ownership of their data. We are all very proud to be able to use this new technology, to help make insurance faster, cheaper and better for all our customers across the world.”
– Sylvain De Crom, B3i Chief Product Officer
What Does It Do?
Five key features of B3i Cat XoL:
- Treaty Creation and File Sharing
This allows the broker and insurer to describe the treaty details and share relevant data files with one or all parties and enables interaction on the definition of the treaty. - Contract Certainty
A contract management module covers layer and section structure, reinstatements, premium and brokerage calculations as well as installments due and clauses. With a real-time distribution of all contract terms & conditions, offerings and signatures, the contract parties will have complete visibility and be assured they are working on the same version. The application also includes endorsement functionality allowing multiple parties to agree upon amendments to existing contracts. - Interaction and Dialogue
Brokers and insurers can select one or more parties with whom to build a transaction. Throughout this process, all communication can flow through the application using built-in messaging. This makes it extremely efficient to keep the dialogue in sync with the contract’s construction and execution. - Negotiation Workflow
During the negotiation process, contracts flow flexibly from one state to another including quotations, Firm Order Terms (FOT), written and signed lines. All parties are presented with a clear overview of all their contracts and the state the contract is in. This facilitates the management of multiple incoming as well as outgoing transactions allowing the party to transact. - Treaty Overview Screen
The application provides a real-time overview of treaties throughout the writing & signing stages, enabling users to monitor at a glance the progress of treaty completion. The Overview Screen also provides ‘hover over’ functionality to give users quick access to a contract summary and the option to view the entire contract.
“This is a pivotal moment for B3i, the team and its shareholders and this release is one we are proud to share. Looking ahead, the team are working with our customers in preparation for a live parallel run for year-end renewals whilst working towards subsequent releases and a production-ready version in Q4 2019. B3i has laid the groundwork with this historic milestone, which paves the way as we continue to enhance the already rich functionality of our offering. In addition, B3i will be accelerating our partnership strategy to bring a broad array of solutions to customers.”
– John Carolin, B3i CEO
