Irish Insurtech Blink, will today present the latest offering in its suite of parametric insurance solutions to an audience including Lloyd’s market, insurance and reinsurance experts and mentors of the Lloyd’s Lab innovation accelerator programme. “Blink Interruption” is the culmination of 10 weeks intensive work on the prestigious course, on which Blink led the charge of participants by developing a market-ready offering which can cut average business interruption claims processing time by up to 95%.
The Hurricane Non-Damage Parametric Insurance solution provides liquidity to small and medium-sized businesses in the immediate aftermath of an insured event (i.e. a hurricane), thereby reducing overall claims totals as a direct result of early intervention. It uses automated financial validation and immediate pay-out solutions to allow businesses to get back on their feet just days after the event occurs.
Blink Co-Founder & CEO Paul Prendergast echoed the outlook of John Neal, Lloyd’s CEO, who in a recent report on ‘Building simpler insurance products to better protect customers’ spoke of the global industry imperative to “accelerate our efforts to build simpler insurance products that are more easily understood by our customers”.
Prendergast spoke in advance of the virtual presentation of the product, “Following a disaster, 90% of smaller companies fail within a year unless they can resume operations within 5 days. Blink Interruption offers real-time claim activation and pay-out solutions in the immediate aftermath, making it possible for businesses to recover and reopen. Its appeal is in its simplicity. Critically, it allows our insurance partners to offer cover through a streamlined claims validation platform that immediately begins measuring the impact of a disaster on a business, automates pay-outs and demonstrates to customers that insurers are there for them, when they need it most.
This Lloyd’s Lab experience has been invaluable to us. We have collaborated with some of the world’s best minds in insurance innovation, and have delivered a market-ready product at the end of just 10 weeks. This is a huge achievement and a testament to the programme itself”.
Blink Interruption – Key Features
– Open Banking Validation: real-time monitoring and large-scale integration with 11,500 banks and credit unions enables automatic claim validation and is sufficient to prove the hurricane’s impact on the business.
– Early liquidity provided post-event will allow businesses to recover and reopen. Prendergast advised, “Traditional business interruption claims on average take between 6 months and 2 years by which time, it is too late. Blink Interruption offers early intervention when it matters most to business owners.”
George Beattie, Lloyd’s Lab mentor and Head of Incubation Underwriting at Beazley, and global insurer with offices in Europe, Asia, and across North America added, “Blink have built an innovative concept in 10 weeks that offers a novel solution to a real challenge facing our industry- providing fast business interruption validation and claims processing. The product’s simplicity, transparency and real-time service enables insurers to support customers in their time of need. The solution offers insurers significant potential in enhancing the quality of claims servicing- an essential element of customer success. Beazley has ambitious plans with regards to product innovation and parametric products form an exciting part of the landscape. As a result of mentoring Blink during their Lab experience, we are looking forward to exploring parametric opportunities together and seeing how we can deliver ground-breaking new products to market“.
Jason Walsh, CPP Group Chief Executive, said: “The team at Blink, supported by the mentors participating in the Lloyd’s Lab, have done an incredible job in turning their concept into a reality in a matter of weeks. The pace of delivery demonstrates the cutting edge innovation skills at the heart of Blink. Creating a business interruption solution opens up a significant new market for Blink and will make it quicker and easier for insurers to support firms with financial assistance.”
HOW IT WORKS
– Blink continually monitors national weather systems, tracks hurricane formation and projected landfall path.
– Blink proactively confirms insured party was in hurricane path.
– Blink measures the financial impact, verifies the business impact and confirms the policy cover levels. Blink issues payment to the policy holder.
– Blink validates business impact by tracking business activity via open banking and accounting software integrations.
– Validation process is repeated daily and ongoing business impact confirmed.
– Claim pay-outs commence after 1 week, to an amount and duration that is completely configurable subject to partner requirements.
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