# Reconcile claims and subrogation across insurers

> The Institutes RiskBlock Alliance, a consortium including insurers such as Nationwide, Marsh, and Aegon, evaluates distributed ledger technology for property and casualty insurance. Using a shared Hyperledger Fabric architecture, member companies verify insurance policies and settle cross-carrier subrogation claims in an automated fashion. The initiative aims to lower operational friction and administration costs across multi-party insurance workflows.

**Sector:** Tertiary sector · **Industry:** Insurance · **Organisation:** RiskBlock Alliance (Konsortium unter Leitung der American Property Casualty Insurance Association, mit Partnern u. a. Marsh, Nationwide, The Hartford, Liberty Mutual, Aegon) · **Maturity level:** Pilot

Canonical URL: https://www.sapientblock.com/en/use-cases/riskblock-alliance-schadendaten-regressansprueche-branchenweit-abgleichen

## Documentation status

- **Project status:** Pilot
- **Evidence:** Evidence medium
- **Editorial review:** pending

## Description

The RiskBlock Alliance, led by the industry organisation The Institutes, is building a shared infrastructure through which insurance companies can directly reconcile business transactions with each other. The use of permissioned networks makes intermediaries and lengthy bilateral correspondence unnecessary. Participating insurers can coordinate coverage confirmations and financial settlements in a trusted, tamper-proof environment.

Within the framework of the RiskBlock Alliance, insurance companies developed joint blockchain applications based on Hyperledger Fabric under the technical leadership of Accenture. One focus was on the subrogation process, where insurers settle and offset financial claims among themselves from regulated liability and comprehensive claims. Another focus was the digital proof of insurance coverage for quick and tamper-proof validity checks. By using smart contracts, settlement rules are uniformly coded and automatically executed as soon as both parties release the case data. The platform demonstrates how competitors can cooperate in non-differentiating processing processes to reduce the overall costs of industry operations.

## Benefits

- Automated settlement of mutual subrogation claims
- Reduction of clearing and transaction costs between insurers
- Faster resolution of settlements in cases of shared liability
- Standardised exchange of case data across company boundaries
- Minimisation of manual clarification steps and reduction of processing times
- Audit-proof logging of mutual transactions
- Less repetitive clarification effort in contacts with external insurers
- Focus on complex claims instead of manual document verification

## Challenges

- Complex integration with proprietary legacy systems of individual member companies
- High coordination requirements regarding uniform data standards among industry participants
- Legal and competition law hurdles in the joint operation of a data exchange platform
- Transition from proven manual workflows to semi-automated approvals

## Technology foundation

Permissioned distributed ledger technology based on Hyperledger Fabric enables selective, data protection-compliant information exchange between competing insurance companies without disclosing sensitive customer data.

## Sources

- [Nationwide Insurance Rolls Out Proof Of Insurance On The RiskBlock Blockchain](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/nationwide-insurance-rolls-out-proof-insurance-riskblock-blockchain)
- [RiskBlock Alliance™ Announces Plan to Launch Blockchain-Based Subrogation Tool](https://www.theinstitutes.org/guide/riskblock-alliancetm-announces-plan-launch-blockchain-based-subrogation-tool)
- [Accenture Joins The Institutes RiskBlock™ Alliance as Lead Framework Architect to Expand Blockchain Use Within Insurance](https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/2018/accenture-joins-the-institutes-riskblock-alliance-as-lead-framework-architect-to-expand-blockchain-use-within-insurance)
- [RiskBlock Alliance™ Announces Plan to Launch Blockchain-Based Subrogation Tool](https://www.coverager.com/riskblock-alliance-announces-plan-to-launch-blockchain-based-subrogation-tool/)
- [RiskBlock Alliance expands to 30 member companies](https://www.reinsurancene.ws/riskblock-alliance-expands-to-30-member-companies/)