President’s Corner

March 2023

This is an exciting time for The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative. First off, we are very proud to introduce our newsletter. The RiskStream newsletter will be an informative source of news and information for RiskStream members, zoning in on the status of various projects, important updates on consortium engagement or enhancements to our platform (Canopy). Amid the current economic volatility, RiskStream provides a nexus for the insurance industry to come together and work on multiparty business process challenges, finding pathways to increase operational efficiency across the industry, mitigating economic risk. To maximize success, we need our members aware of all our activities.

Patrick Schmid, PhD

As many of you know, most of our focus has been on business-to-business data exchange or verification use cases. We’ve made significant progress with our personal auto application, which is called RAPID X. A heavy majority of the industry are interested in the app, we have formed an auto advisory committee with representatives from these companies and they are beginning to sign Letters of Intent to move forward with adoption. RAPID X lays a foundation for other use cases to emerge, and the auto insurance committee is looking into this, starting with total loss salvage title transfer process. We will be completing a proof of concept on this with CHAMP Titles that leverages RAPID X’s network and, initially, its reference integration to Guidewire Claims Systems. We have also completed a proof of concept that provides a commercial auto variant of RAPID X and are planning to launch a working group to inspect leveraging RAPID X’s matching algorithm for “double-dipping” fraud detection.

While activities continue to advance in personal and commercial auto, Surety Bonds is not far behind. After completion of the power of attorney verification app, the industry has made significant progress on its second proof of concept to verify delivery of the bond itself. A new Surety advisory committee has formed to strategize on how to best incorporate existing core system providers, obligees and others as we advance towards the pilot stage.

Speaking of pilots, the Life & Annuities sector has launched a Phase 3 Mortality Monitor working group to take the existing application to a pilot stage, extending the capabilities of the application beyond carriers to include other data providers (data aggregators, states, etc.) as well. Other significant work has been underway in Life & Annuities, including efforts related to education verification for Life & Annuities product sales and data sharing for 1035 exchanges.

While all these efforts are the focus, other efforts within RiskStream Explores provide new opportunities for RSC members. These include blockchain educational series (like the Web3 series offered at the end of last year), insurtech vetting and partnership exploration (like what is being conducted with ARBOL for parametric homeowners’ reinsurance) and proprietary use case exploration. This last one is getting a lot of member interest, as there is potential to use Canopy’s private permissioned network or its new capabilities to connect to public blockchain for members to inspect new partnership applications or B2C applications.

It’s an exciting time, indeed. The 2023 year is setting up to be a very notable one for RiskStream. Thank you for all the work you’re doing for the industry and your continuous support of our initiative.