Insurance provider MetLife’s Asia innovation center LumenLab is teaming up with media firm Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and insurance cooperative NTUC Income to pilot a blockchain-powered insurance claim system that will automate life insurance claims for the bereaved families.
Lifechain, developed by LumenLab, will enable SPH to securely encrypt and share verification data used for obituary placement in the press with NTUC Income to automatically kick-start the incumbents life insurance claim process.
In the normal case, the grieving family places the last priority to finding out and filing for a policy claim, while placing an obituary will be one of the first priorities. The data from the obituary is then shared with NTUC Income on the blockchain to begin the claim process.
Lifechain will begin piloting later in the month targeting 1,000 randomly selected NTUC Income life insurance policyholders.
For the pilot, once the obituary is placed in The Straits Times, consent is sought from family members to submit the deceased’s National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) number into ‘Lifechain’ as hashed data. Then a search is triggered to match life insurance policy.
SPH will inform family members within one working day when a match is found. Lifechain will then send an automatic notification to NTUC Income via email to initiate the claims process.
If and when a match is not found, family members will be informed to proceed to make checks and file claims with their life insurers accordingly.
In August last year, LumenLab began testing automated insurance solution known as “Vitana”, claimed to be the first health insurance product using blockchain technology to trigger an automatic payout. It triggers an automatic payout upon diagnosis of gestational diabetes in pregnant women, without the need to make a claim.
Vitana was developed within the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s or MAS regulatory sandbox.
