Lloyd's Looks at Parametric Insurance and Smart Contracts

In a recent report, titled Triggering Innovation—How smart contracts bring insurance to life, Lloyd's said smart contracts could be used to increase efficiency and add value for customers and help insurers offer customers better products and services.

Smart contracts are contracts that are either totally or partially automated by computer code, reducing the time taken to get a policy to the customer and a claim paid. Smart contracts may be used to carry out various insurance processes such as risk placement, premium payment, warranty enforcement, and claims assessment and settlement. The report describes four practical applications for smart contracts in the cargo, contingency/aviation, agriculture, and property catastrophe classes, and shows how full claims and/or workflow automation could be applied to further classes in the Lloyd's market.

A second Lloyd's report, Triggering Innovation—Parametric insurance (only available to Lloyd's market participants), identifies similar benefits. Parametric policies trigger a predefined level of claims payment quickly after preagreed parameters have been exceeded, such as an earthquake over a certain size. As policies are based on definitive information such as previous loss events and independently verified data, insurers have more scope to design products for risks that could otherwise be uninsurable or underinsured. The report also containsthree case studies(available to everyone) that demonstrate how Lloyd's parametric policies are helping agricultural producers in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States manage their risks.