Teambrella claims to be the first community insurance service built on Bitcoin. As with other community insurance propositions, Teambrella aims to make insurance more transparent and socially integrated which is the antithesis to the traditional customer experience within insurance which pits policyholders against insurers at claim time.
Although Teambrella is at an early stage (insuring the deductible for collision insurance and pet insurance), the key differentiation here will be Teambrella’s ability to make its bitcoin operating model work.
How it Works?
- Each member joins a Tembrella team that will co-insure eachothers’ auto insurance collision deductible.
- Each member deposits funds into a special personal Bitcoin wallet. The funds in the wallet are co-controlled by the member and the team.
- In the event of a claim, the team votes to reimburse a teammate, all teammates then pay their respective share from the bitcoin wallet.
Teambrella is building the first decentralized Bitcoin-based insurance company, where users can insure each other
Teambrella plans to go beyond collision deductible and pet insurance in the near future. For now, the most pressing issue is to prove that the community voting mechanism of claim validation in addition to the use of bitcoin for claim settlement is a superior business model. Co-founder Alex Paperno has remarked that “We don’t want to allow users to create any possible type of insurance right from the start because a lot of types can’t be easily handled without making some changes to Teambrella“.
Clearly, Teambrella’s strategy is to target tech savvy consumers who will be more comfortable with the use of Bitcoin and social media. However, it will be interesting to see how Teambrella overcomes the relative complexity it has built into the model by virtue of the fact that members must vote and validate claims and new members on a constant basis.
Ultimately, Teambrella is attempting to lure customers away from traditional insurers by ensuring that Teambrella has nothing to gain by denying claims. Although questions remain about the viability of relying on a digital currency whose value can fluctuate by as much as 10% in a day, it’s undeniable that Teambrella are applying some innovation across the value chain of insurance.
Participate in our next webinar on the theme of “Peer-to-Peer Insurance & Community” on Wednesday, 8th February 2017, 9am-10.15am (UK time). To hear more about P2P product/model register below
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