March 28,Shanghai- The Shanghai Insurance Exchange(hereinafter referred to as the “SHIE”), together with nine insurance institutions, successfully verified the feasibility of insurance credit on the consortium blockchain platform from the four dimensions: function, performance, safety, operation and maintenance.

Shanghai Insurance Exchange testing blockchain platform. photo credit:SHIE

In this test run, the SHIE and the other nine insurance institutions set up a small consortium blockchain platform with 10 nodes, in which those insurance agencies worked as transaction and verification node and the SHIE as a management node. Three mainstream blockchain solutions were tested as the bottom layer framework. Qualitative and quantitative test were performed on the performance and safety of the platforms. One of the blockchain solutions deployed on the SHIE cloud could handle up to 300 transactions per second (300TPS), which have met the basic requirements for performance in a commercial environment. In terms of security, data could be secured through storage encryption, transmission encryption and license-authorizing blockchain solutions.

Official from SHIE said that the blockchain system would serve as a starting point for the future development of commercial insurance platform. The system could be deployed on cloud and monitor node operation. The solution can achieve visualized display of consortium node and smart contract authorization as a whole. The system is currently based on PBFT consensus algorithm, which is sufficient to meet the requirements of low-frequency commercial transactions. A system for medium and high-frequency commercial environment will be the next target.

The insurance industry has long been suffering from some common issues like: misleading insurance contract, low efficiency in handling claims, info-sharing among peers, fraud and other issues. Wei Yingning , former Vice Chainman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission, has said that the nature of the insurance is the loss-sharing mechanism. With audit accounting for 30% or 40% of the total cost, the introduction of blockchain technology is expected to reduce the industry expenditure in this respect. With features like safe, traceability and immutability, blockchain could host data like the premium, commission, claims division to achieve autonomous settlement.

The nine insurance institutions involved in the test are: Lujiazui Guotai Life Insurance Co., Ltd., Founder Life Insurance, AIA Life Insurance, China Land Property Insurance, Minsheng Life Insurance Starr Property Insurance, Taiping Life Insurance, Taiping Property Insurance and Sunshine Life Insurance.

SHIE was founded in June 2016 aims to be a platform for industry infrastructure and comprehensive service provider.

SHIE official said: