October 2021 | The ICISA INSIDER October 2021 | The ICISA INSIDER
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ICISA updates
An update from the Surety Blockchain Working group Greg Davenport Chair of the Surety Blockchain Working Group Company: Liberty Mutual
The Management Committee’s charter for our working group was officially completed in 2020 after we successfully “incubated” the use case for bonds and powers of attorney. We then found and selected RiskStream Collaborative, a non-profit consortium, to take the idea to proof of concept, and, if successful, to production. In 2021 the activity of our working group was shifted to workshops facilitated by RiskStream, at no cost to ICISA or its members. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you the tremendous progress that has been made since that time. The interest and engagement in our blockchain initiative globally is unprecedented, thanks to ICISA’s leadership and vision to make this an inclusive and collaborative effort. Knowing that multiple blockchain initiatives could spread ICISA member company resources thin, ICISA leaders reached out to other surety industry trade associations and invited them to join ICISA in focusing first on powers of attorney and bonds. The Surety and Fidelity Association of America (SFAA), the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP), the Pan American Surety Association (PASA) and the Canadian Surety Association agreed, and joined ICISA in working with the RiskStream Collaborative to build out the use cases for powers of attorney being on the blockchain, followed by bonds. Four virtual workshops were conducted in February through May, with nearly 350 participants attending the first workshop! Over the course of the four workshops 173 separate entities participated, including 63 sureties, 5 reinsurers, 83 agencies/ brokerages, 8 industry associations, the Small Business Administration (a department of the US government), a number of system solution providers and CPAs, and one university. The
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workshops focused on powers of attorney. Though POAs are not attached to bonds in Europe, the ICISA blockchain working group agreed it was best to start smaller with POAs and then build upon that effort to add surety bonds to the blockchain. At the end of the workshops it was agreed to take the POA use cases to build a proof of concept. The proof of concept for POA will kick off on October 21st and is expected to take about 4 months. Participating sureties should expect to attend 2 meetings a month virtually, and we are told that technical resources should not be required.
As of September 1st, 10 major sureties have committed to participate in the proof of concept for powers of attorney. These sureties wrote over $3B USD in direct written premium in 2020. Additionally, 4 brokers, including a major global broker are participating, as well as a leading surety system solution provider for agents, brokers and carriers. The 5 global trade associations, including ICISA, will also participate in the POC, free of charge, to assure that member interests are represented.
