Why Blockchain – A Brief History

Recapping the last 20 years of digital transformation in insurance:

1. The 2000’s – Shifting from off-line legacy systems to the Internet
2. The 2010’s – Adapting to the Social Web, Moving to the Cloud, Mobile, etc.
3. The 2020’s – Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, & Blockchain

Some quotes from the first two era’s which you may remember…

1. The 2000’s – “I would NEVER put my credit card in a WEB site!”
2. The 2010’s – “Facebook is for wives.” (…so many things wrong with that…)

These are just two of the numerous, oftentimes myopic, and frequently short-sighted statements made by otherwise highly intelligent and savvy insurance executives.

And because of flawed mind-sets, perhaps a titch of group think, ever-present fiefdoms, plus personal biases and generally bad counsel, many of these executives and their associated insurance operations have not fared well in the competitive landscape.

All this begs the obvious question for the current generation of insurance executives: What’s next? (And therefore, what steps should our operations be taking today?)

Blockchain.

You may say, “I’ll wait a few years and see how it shakes out.” However, Blockchain first arrived on the scene about 5 years ago. Thus, in the technology adoption cycle, “Innovators” are well into successful deployments, notably Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Globally and across industries, a case could be made that we are well into the “Early Adopters” phase. Relative to insurance, searching on “Blockchain in Insurance” will reveal insurance companies in early development Proof of Concept pilots. More information on early Blockchain pilots can be found on the CoverageR Tools page.

A word of caution: Try not to let the unknown lead to paralysis. “Blockchain – Wow, I have no idea what it is.” A simple first step might be to build a River of Information on the topic. Subscribe to email threads, follow the hashtag on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc.

That’s it for now. What questions or comments to you have?

Cheers, Mike

PS. Recommended reading: Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy