Chinese insurers are utilizing blockchain to process coronavirus related claims in the middle of corona epidemic. According to South China Morning Post, Xiang Hu Bao, Chinese online mutual fund portal, has included coronavirus to the list of diseases entitled for maximum non-recurring payout of 100,000 yuan (~$14,300).
Xiang Hu Bao is basically a blockchain powered portal facilitating posting of insurance claims by its 104 million users.
According to the report, blockchain technology is implemented to avoid fraudulent claims and ensure quicker processing of requests.
Ant Financial, financial subsidiary of Alibaba, owns and administers Xiang Hu Bao. Mobile payment platform AliPay is used by Xiang Hu Bao to remit payments to coronavirus casualties. Alipay uses its own capital to disburse payment quickly and efficiently. A spokesperson of Xiang Hu Bao explained the benefits of the platform.
“Xiang Hu Bao has been able to process claims and make payouts to participants quicker, due to the decentralised, trust-free nature of blockchain technology. […] Claim applicants can submit their supporting documents as evidence while investigation firms can get immediate access to them on the blockchain. All parties involved can see the entire process.”
Notably, Blue Cross Insurance, owned by the Bank of East Asia, is assisting with its medical claims app. to reduce the bureaucratic issues related to coronavirus outbreak.
The insurance service’s managing director told South China Morning Post:
Patrick Wan, Xiang Hu Bao’s managing director, detailed on the role played by blockchain technology during coronavirus outbreak:
“Our blockchain-backed claims service has played a key role during the outbreak of the coronavirus by totally eliminating the paper process and the need for back-and-forth documents delivery to clinics. […] This really helps to mitigate the risk of infection from face-to-face contact.”
Blue Cross Insurance has pointed out that its platform has the ability to handle more than 1,000 trades per second without involvement of human beings.
Until now, after the platform was rolled out in April 2019, the medical claims app has recorded a double digit monthly growth of users (policy holder), on an average.
Using the app, patients can check the outcome of their claims a day after visiting hospital.
As per New York Times, more than 811 people have lost lives because of coronavirus in China and the confirmed cases have increased to 37,198.
The infection of this magnitude has increased the support for blockchain based tools, while cryptos are being used to support the aid programs.
Acoer, which develops blockchain powered apps, has built a data visualization tool called HashLog to monitor the spread of dangerous coronavirus.
The tool uses distributed ledger protocol Hedera Hashgraph.
Recently, Syren Johnstone, executive director of the master in laws program at the University of Hong Kong, advocated the use of blockchain and AI based tools to manage coronavirus outbreak in a better manner.
It can be remembered that blockchain firm Hyperchain rolled out a platform to battle the coronavirus outbreak in early February.
Coronavirus is also affecting cryptocurrency sector as several Asian blockchain related events have been postponed.
Additionally, Hong Kong-headquartered blockchain powered remittance firm Bitspark has unexpectedly announce its shutdown, citing the coronavirus epidemic as one of the reasons.
