Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (NASDAQ:CTSH) and 14 insurance firms in India have joined hands to develop data-sharing blockchain to facilitate cross-company data-sharing. According to a statement issued by the IT multinational company, this new development will pave way for a secured data-sharing thereby cutting down the risk of data breaches and fraud.
Simultaneously, the development will also favor greater efficiency, faster turnaround as compared to conventional methods and better record-keeping. The companies that are partnering with Cognizant include SBi Life Insurance Company Ltd (NSE:SBILIFE), Max Life Insurance, Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance, Edelweiss Tokio Life, IDBI Federal Life Insurance, Birla Sun Life Insurance, HDFC Life, Kotak Life, Tata AIA Life, PNB MetLife, IndiaFirst Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, Bharti AXA, Aegon Life, and SUD (Star Union Dai-ichi) Life Insurance.
The data-sharing marketplace will be hosted on Microsoft Azure and will be built on the platform of Corda distributed ledger by R3. Although the solution is being implemented now, it was developed in 2017 by cognizant in partnership with the above-mentioned insurers.
According to the president of operations SBI Life, Anand Pejawar, the new models are coming up for the insurers due to the decentralized and immutable nature of blockchain that makes combating the document tampering and false billing issues possible. A statement says that by storing data on the blockchain, the insurers will be able to cut down the operating costs as well as the processes required for duplication.
New Solution To Largely Help Insurers
The new solution is expected to largely help the insurers. It will cut down their dependency on data intermediaries and aggregators who until now were the only sources for gaining customer and policy details. The insurers need these details for carrying out myriad critical activities such as medical and financial underwriting, fraud detection, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, and know-your-customer due diligence.
The global delivery head for insurance at Cognizant, Arun Baid said that blockchain works as a shared source of truth and has the potential of opening up numerous possibilities for the insurers so that a more transparent and efficient collaboration is made possible thereby making way for better-informed decisions.
