Ireland-based global consulting firm Accenture and Italy-based insurance giant Generali Group’s employee benefits unit have debuted a blockchain solution for employee benefits. The partnership was announced in a press release from the firms on April 16.

Generali Employee Benefits (GEB) is an employee benefit solutions provider and global business line of Italy’s largest insurance firm — and 8th largest globally. The press release states that GEB operates the largest employee benefits solutions network worldwide.

The blockchain solution will reportedly facilitate data sharing for parties involved in the reinsurance process for captive and pooling services. It will also reportedly improve procedures’ reliability through the use of smart contracts and automated reconciliation.

Captive insurance refers to underwriters who are wholly-owned by their insured clients, while reinsurance pooling services are a risk financing mechanism used by insurers to increase their ability to underwrite specific types of risks.

The blockchain tool is designed to innovate and simplify GEB’s existing employee benefits operating model for captive services, which spans policies such as life, disability, accident and healthcare insurance.

The solution is reportedly supported by Generali and inspired by the work of the insurance industry collaborative blockchain initiative B3i.

The solution’s launch reportedly comes after the successful completion of a prototype in 2018, involving major agricultural firm Syngenta, as well as Spanish, Swiss and Serbian local insurers.

The prototype was found to provide significant benefits for the employee benefits sector by establishing effective integration of systems, data and processes for all stakeholders, improving data quality and saving time and costs.

GEB’s CEO stated in the press release that in its provision of a seamless ecosystem, “blockchain will change not only our Network but the employee benefits industry as we know it.”

As reported, B3i Service AG — the Swiss blockchain startup founded by B3i in March of last year — expanded its group of investors this month as part of its ongoing funding round.

The startup is focused on multi-company syndicated risk placement, accounting, and claims, and has developed a product based on R3 Corda’s distributed ledger technology.