Japan-based insurer Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire has linked with NTT Data Corp to complete a blockchain-based insurance policy for marine cargo insurance certificates.
The policies are forwarded by and shared among the parties involved in a trade, along with other shipping documents, such as a bill of lading and commercial invoice.
Tokio Marine said that its proof of concept created a blockchain-based bill of lading, letter of credit and commercial invoice, then tested it from the perspective of a shipper that needed a certificate of insurance in order to satisfy the insurance requirement on the letter of credit. The system imported the necessary data , as well as a commercial invoice to create a certificate of insurance, the insurer said.
Tokio Marine said that the blockchain based system dramatically reduced the shipper’s data inputting work load when compared with the current web-based insurance certificate issuing system, stating that “it was actually proven that the blockchain based system will cut 85% of the shipper’s time of data inputting work in order to receive an insurance certificate.” It was also tested in terms of accessibility from the parties concerned, such as consignee and banks.
The test successfully dealt with a deliberately attempted hack. “When one block was attacked and rewritten, the tampered block was not distributed to other nodes and it became obvious that there was inconsistency compared to the other nodes. It also showed that the whole blockchain system still worked with the legitimate data even though one node was attacked,” Tokio Marine said.