The insurance industry is making a move to act ahead of a potentially disruptive technology.
LIMRA announced on Monday that it has established an advisory council to explore opportunities for the use of blockchain technology in the life insurance and retirement sectors.
“Our role as a trade association is to provide a forum for industry discussion and collaboration on emerging trends,” said Robert Kerzner, president and CEO of LIMRA, in a released comment. “Blockchain technology offers our members significant ways to immediately improve operations and efficiencies. We are encouraged that many of our members have joined LIMRA’s Blockchain Advisory Council to help us find scalable solutions using this technology.”
LIMRA’s Blockchain Advisory Council will initially include members from AXA, John Hancock, Lincoln Financial Group, MassMutual, Nationwide, Northwestern Mutual, Pacific Life Insurance Company, Penn Mutual and Principal Financial Group.
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that creates a decentralized, secure record of transactions. The technology is currently used to verify exchanges using cryptocurrencies, but may have applications throughout the financial services industry.
For example, LIMRA says researchers predict that blockchain technology may lower administrative and claims processing costs, expand access to financial and insurance products to underserved markets, and enable immediate-issue products.
The Advisory Council will hold an inaugural meeting featuring blockchain experts on September 7 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Endicott House.