Launch of B3i Re expands functionality of Cat XoL across the value chain

Blockchain insurance industry initiative B3i launched its new B3i Reinsurance solution on September 14, building on the success of its Cat XoL product and significantly broadening its scope.

The rebrand of version 2.0 of Cat XoL as B3i Re reflects this addition of new features and underlying functionality.

“Cat XoL was a cat excess of loss contract-type placement product with limited scope,” B3i chief executive officer John Carolin told Monte Carlo Today.

“The scope of the application will be expanded to all contract types, making it more relevant for our customers.

“We have added significant functionality along the value chain: whereas we had focused on placement, it now introduces technical accounting functionality and then in March next year we will introduce claims functionality,” Carolin explained.

“We are looking to allow the customer benefits to scale by addressing more contract types and taking the application to where the inefficiencies we are looking to address exist.”

The application builds on Cat XoL’s use of distributed ledger technology to indelibly record an agreement at the point of placement.

“We wanted to leverage what we call single version of the truth the immutability of digital ledger technology for keeping the contract obligations between parties in lockstep throughout an entire contract,” said Carolin.

“To do that we needed to include placement, because that is the single point in time when the parties to a contract agree.

“Capturing that golden thread at that point in time was important because if you don’t get the data when you first agree it and you start somewhere else, you are inevitably starting with something that is not reconciled.”

Whereas Cat XoL was specifically a placement product, B3i Re is intended to use the unique qualities of blockchain throughout the whole contract lifecycle, from placement to settlement of claims and reconciliation of cash payments, whether those are premium payables or claims payables.

“We see less focus on placement and more on the rest of the process,” said Carolin.

“One of the key features we will be enabling is the ability for other placement systems or contracts that have been agreed off-ledger to be ingested, so you can take all your old business that is in run-off and put it onto the platform and continue to evolve it.

“It makes it a much more relevant application for the downstream functionality.

“It also means that existing broker systems and existing startups with new and novel placement techniques can plug into the B3i infrastructure so that their customers can get all the benefits without their having to use B3i’s placement functionality per se,” he concluded.