MetLife’s LumenLab pioneers blockchain initiative to automate life insurance claims

Metlife subsidiary Lumenlab, together with Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and NTUC Income, is utilizing blockchain technology to automate the verification process for life insurance claims.

Known as “Lifechain,” the collaboration will allow bereaved families who place their obituaries in a local newspaper to trigger searches to see if their loved ones had a life insurance policy.

Once an obituary is published in SPH’s portfolio company, The Strait Times, the bereaved family will be asked if they want to participate in the new program. If they agreed, Lifechain will encrypt the deceased’s National Registration Identity Card number using hash data and place it onto the blockchain.

This will trigger a search on NTUC Income’s end for a possible matching life insurance policy. If a match is found, SPH will inform families within 1 business day, while Lifechain will send a notification to NTUC Income to start the claims process.

A pilot scheme will kick off this month, and 1,000 NTUC Income policyholders will be randomly selected.

“SPH hopes to expand ‘Lifechain’ to include more insurers in time to come to bring greater convenience to family members attending to the deceased’ administrative matters securely,” Julian Tan, SPH Chief of Digital Business, said.

Zia Zaman, MetLife Asia CIO and LumenLab CEO, told Forbes that the use of blockchain technology has several advantages over the conventional database. He pointed out that blockchain technology is more secure, is cheaper to implement, and is way easier to add another node.

International governments, airline companies, and airports have also started adopting blockchain technology. Recently, global account giant Accenture inked a formal agreement with the Canadian and Dutch governments, Air France-KLM, and Air Canada to use blockchain in identifying travelers, a deal called “Known Traveler Digital Identity.”