Most of us have been there: You’ve just had a fender-bender, and now you’re dreading the time and effort it is going to take to deal with your insurance company, the police, and the other driver. Even if things go relatively smoothly, it is still a major disruption of your schedule.

But what if you as a developer could turn things around and actually disrupt the insurance industry? What if you could improve not only your own experience but also that of millions of people around the world dealing with the same inconveniences, delays, and administrative frustrations? Well, this is your chance.

Blockchain presents a huge opportunity for the insurance industry. It offers the chance to innovate around the way data is exchanged, claims are processed, and fraud is prevented. Blockchain can bring together developers from tech companies, regulators, and insurance companies to create a valuable new insurance management asset.

A natural pairing through its distributed ledger, smart contracts, and non-repudiation capabilities that act as a shared infrastructure, blockchain can transform all kinds of insurance processes. Currently, many insurance processes are manual, error-prone, and can require long processing times. There are often different versions of the same data in multiple systems of record, leading to added costs and lengthy disputes.

With blockchain, manual processes are automated by sharing information on plan participants, entitlements, and claim data. Smart contracts are computationally encoded with participant registration and verification rules. Shared data and smart contract computations reduce downstream disputes. Benefits verification is based on multiple data sources that are readily available to all service providers.

The bottom line: Blockchain technology provides an opportunity for the insurance industry to improve operating efficiencies, lower the costs of transaction processing, enhance the customer experience, improve data quality, and increase trust among parties.

When you complete this code pattern, you will know how to build a functional blockchain insurance application. The web-based app, which is written in Node.js and React, has four participants (peers):

1. The Insurance peer is the company that provides the insurance for the product (in our example, the car) and who is responsible for processing the claims.

2. The Police peer is responsible for verifying the accident or theft claims.

3. The Repair shop peer is responsible for repairs of the product.

4. The Shop peer sells the products to a consumer.

Introduction to IBM Blockchain Platform 2.0 - Build your own insurance app