Etherisc Launches Decentralized Flight Insurance Product Using Chainlink Data Feeds

We’re proud to announce that Etherisc — the decentralized insurance protocol and ecosystem — has launched FlightDelay on Gnosis Chain Mainnet. FlightDelay is a blockchain-based flight insurance product that uses Chainlink Data Feeds to autonomously issue policies and execute payouts for travelers who experience flight delays or cancellations. The result is automated flight insurance policies that are quicker to settle, cheaper to provision thanks to decreases in human and technical overhead, and more transparent given their blockchain infrastructure backend.

As Christoph Mussenbrock, Co-Founder, Protocol and Architecture at Etherisc, stated in a recent press release regarding FlightDelay: “People can easily sign up for a policy to secure their flight online, turn up at the airport, and receive a fair payment directly to their preferred wallet should their flight be delayed for longer than 45 minutes.”

FlightDelay is now available for passenger flights globally and amongst the world’s top airlines. The insurance policies are purchasable with USDC using the blockchain platform Gnosis Chain (formerly xDai Chain) on Etherisc’s FlightDelay portal, with more cryptocurrency and fiat payment options coming in the future.

We selected Chainlink as our go-to oracle solution because it’s the most flexible and time-tested oracle network in the smart contract economy, already proven to help secure $75B+ in on-chain value for leading blockchain-based projects. Chainlink enables Etherisc to access premium flight data feeds for our flight insurance solution and provides a framework for easy integration of additional data providers and oracle nodes in the future to increase the robustness of our oracle solution. Ultimately, this will help Etherisc scale to meet the increasing demand for blockchain-based parametric insurance products.

Due to their immutable nature and decentralized security, blockchains can act as a reliable mechanism for processing insurance claims. Smart contracts allow for the terms of an insurance agreement to be codified into digital logic that executes in a tamper-proof manner based on predefined conditions (i.e., if x event happens, execute y action). In the case of flight insurance, insurance policies can be programmed to autonomously process claims and make payouts once certain data is received about the flight’s status.

However, blockchains cannot natively call external APIs — a limitation commonly known as the blockchain oracle problem. At the same time, smart contract applications such as FlightDelay need high-quality flight data to enable new types of data-driven insurance products that help people around the world hedge flight delay risk. Thus, we needed to make use of a blockchain oracle to enable off-chain connectivity for our smart contracts by pulling in high-quality data from external API connection points.

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that provides a framework for building and accessing oracle services that enable smart contracts to access external data and off-chain computation. Through Chainlink oracles, Etherisc will have secure and reliable access to the necessary data to run our flight insurance application end-to-end.

Some of the important features that weighed into our decision to go with Chainlink include:

• High-Quality Data — Chainlink oracles can manage API keys and account logins, allowing them to aggregate and deliver premium data from highly available and financially incentivized APIs.
• Reliable Nodes — Chainlink Data Feeds are secured by a large collection of independent, Sybil-resistant oracle nodes run by leading enterprises, data providers, and DevOps teams with a reliable and verifiable performance history.
• Decentralized Infrastructure — Chainlink Data Feeds are decentralized at the data source and oracle network levels, eliminating any central point of failure in the sourcing and delivery of external data to Etherisc.
• Transparent Performance — Chainlink Data Feeds can be monitored by anyone in real-time using existing data analytic tools such as market.link and reputation.link, allowing users to verify the data and oracles triggering their contract.

Christoph went on to say: “If users are going to transition to blockchain-based parametric insurance policies then it’s essential to have an oracle capable of supplying accurate information in a tamper-proof manner. Chainlink provides Etherisc with both access to premium API data and decentralized oracle infrastructure that’s resistant to single points of failure, making it an easy choice to support our new FlightDelay insurance solution.”

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About Chainlink

Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. Chainlink oracle networks provide smart contracts with a way to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for enabling feature-rich applications. Chainlink currently secures tens of billions of dollars across DeFi, insurance, gaming, and other major industries, and offers global enterprises and leading data providers a universal gateway to all blockchains.

Learn more about Chainlink by visiting chain.link or read the documentation at docs.chain.link. To discuss an integration, reach out to an expert.

About Etherisc

Etherisc’s goal is to make insurance fair and accessible through its open source, decentralized insurance protocol to collectively build insurance products on the Ethereum blockchain. Its open-source common infrastructure, the Generic Insurance Framework (GIF), includes shared smart contracts, product templates, microservices and the native cryptographic token (DIP) to enable the seamless and efficient creation of decentralized insurance products, with increased transparency and fairness for all parties.

Since its launch in 2016 by a team of legal, financial, and mathematical visionaries, the Etherisc protocol has been reimagining insurance solutions to democratize the process in the interest of the consumer. Projects currently hosted on Etherisc’s open source Generic Insurance Framework include FlightDelay Insurance, Crop Insurance, and Hurricane Protection.