insChain CEO William Bu: Build a caring blockchain community and reorient the insurance industry

On February 25th, insChain South Korean offline meeting was held in Seoul, marking the first meet-up between insChain team and South Korean blockchain lovers. William Bu, founder and CEO of insChain, delivered the keynote speech titled “insChain: Redefining Insurance”.

In the speech, he shared his insights about the pain points in traditional insurance industry and his disruptive ideas, which soon grasped everyone’s attention. During the post-meeting interview, Mr. Bu explained why he founded insChain and how insChain applies blockchain to the insurance industry.

01. Reorient the insurance industry and build a caring blockchain community

In the very beginning of the interview, William Bu introduced the story behind insChain’s establishment.

He has 15 years of experience in the traditional insurance industry. He is an actuary by training, and along his career path from Toronto to Wall Street, and to Hong Kong after the 2008 Financial Crisis, he has obtained a profound understanding about the pain points and various problems in the traditional insurance industry.

He believes that the most protruding issue with traditional insurance industry is the extremely high cost incurred by the centralized operation model. Many people need the protection provided by insurance, but the premium is not always affordable, and some simply are not covered by traditional insurance. Therefore, William and insChain have been dedicated to providing necessary insurance coverage to more people with lower cost.

With the emergence of blockchain, which was referred to by The Economist as “trust machine”, William thought that he must deploy the technology to realize his vision. Insurance companies’ endorsement is no longer needed, and insurers change from the absorbers and undertakers of risks to professional consultative platforms such as Didi and Airbnb and managers of “virtual capital pools”, hence greatly reducing the cost and helping more people in need.

William stressed that the focus of insChain is not on blockchain technology, but on building a mutual help community with the technology. Therefore, insChain has been constantly cultivating a sense of intimacy and belonging among its users.

Such mechanism of mutual help and risk sharing existed long before the emergence of insurance, and it is also the business model of the earliest insurance companies. Hopefully, blockchain can help us reorient the insurance industry back on its original path, and bring more transparency, convenience and trust to the industry.

02. Facilitate the expansion of blockchain with big data and IoT

As an actuary himself, William Bu fully understands the cost structure of every insurance product, including the proportion of adverse selection, company’s profit and expense respectively. Since all actuaries have been involved in insurance product pricing, they know the products very well.

That does not mean that existing insurance products are devoid of any merit, but that new technologies can be applied to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the insurance industry.

Currently, there are many problems plaguing this industry. For instance, salesmen sometimes mislead their clients, and the one-size-fits-all products of insurance companies means the lack of flexibility to suit all groups and individuals. William Bu said that the first job he took was to price group insurance products, so he has a profound understanding of this field. Now with the help of blockchain technology, insChain will inject new vitality to the insurance industry.

So far, insChain has entered into partnership with many database suppliers to make claim settlement more objective. insChain is also planning to acquire data from more major hospitals, which is difficult because claim settlement works differently under different circumstances, yet insChain will continue to explore feasible solutions.

03. “Grounded on Genuine Value”

What kind of value can insChain create for the insurance industry and the whole society? This is the priority for William Bu and his team, who want to tap into the great potential of blockchain and to bring substantial benefit and protection to everyone, particularly to those in need but excluded from the coverage right now.

Member of the insChain community are from all over the world. insChain would like to help more people and more users across the globe by giving them a greater sense of security as well as the access to low-cost protection.