InsurTech startup InsurePal (now known as VouchForMe) is developing an insurance platform that aims to revolutionize the industry’s model for risk selection and fraud prevention by “social proofing” insurance products.
Executive Summary
"If your friends trust you, we trust you." That's the concept underlying a new insurance platform that InsurePal is devising for auto insurance and for guaranteeing blockchain transactions. Co-founders Matt Peterman and Tom Volk provided examples of how the blockchain-harnessed platform would work—potentially revolutionizing peer-to-peer insurance and combatting costly fraud problems.(Editor’s Note: When this feature was originally published in February 2018, the insurance platform described in this article was known as InsurePal. In August, InsurePal changed its name to VouchForMe, in recognition of the idea that the social proof concept could extend beyond insurance.)
With a pilot for motor insurance due to be launched in the UK within the next six months, InsurePal’s blockchain-harnessed platform is designed to be used by insurers that want to sell “distributed social proof insurance,” which, in essence, relies on the friends and family of policyholders to help with assessing risk.
