A forum on the potential of blockchain in the reinsurance industry is to be held tomorrow.

Claus Walter, of insurance firm Zurich and a member of the blockchain insurance industry initiative B3i, will lead a presentation on distributed ledger technology in the reinsurance marketplace.

Mr Walter will appear alongside Ujjval Patel, head of strategy at Acord, a global non-profit association working to improve data quality and information exchange for the insurance industry, and Gavin Woods, counsel at law firm Appleby, in a discussion on the challenges and opportunities of distributed ledger technology.

Blockchain — a computer file underlying a mutual distributed ledger where blocks of information added in sequence cannot be changed or deleted — is regarded as having huge potential to transform the reinsurance industry.

A report last year by professional services company PwC said that reinsurers in line to build some of the biggest blockchain applications outside the payments sector could save between $5 billion and $10 billion a year.

The report added that reinsurers able to build, assess and refine blockchain applications would steal a march over the rest of the industry and “raise the bar” for competitors.

PwC estimated that, by simplifying reconciliation and multiple data entries, blockchain methods could slash expenses by 15 to 20 per cent.

And the report said that blockchain technology could speed up claims-processing verification and also allow primary insurers to cede or retrocede risk using an application specially designed to process treaties, notify all parties and process premium and commission payments.

The conference, organised by the Institute of Risk Management’s Bermuda arm and professional services firm EY Bermuda, will be held tomorrow (Friday) at XL Catlin in Hamilton’s Bermudiana Road between 8.30am and 11.30am.

Anyone interested in attending should contact IRM at irmbermuda@gmail.com. To read the full press release, click on the attachment under the Related Media heading on this webpage