EY, Guardtime, A.P. Møller-Maersk, Microsoft and insurance industry leaders Willis Towers Watson, XL Catlin, MS Amlin and ACORD announce that members of the marine industry are using Insurwave, a blockchain platform to support marine hull insurance. In an increasingly complex and ever evolving risk landscape, businesses will use the platform to transform how they manage risk across their organisation, and how they work with brokers and (re)insurers.

Insurwave, built by a joint venture between EY and Guardtime, leverages blockchain and distributed ledger technologies Microsoft Azure infrastructure and ACORD data standards. It will support more than half a million automated ledger transactions and help manage risk for more than 1,000 commercial vessels in the first year. By connecting participants in a secure, private network with an accurate, immutable audit trail and services to execute processes, the platform establishes a first of its kind digital insurance value chain.

A.P. Moller - Maersk contributed to the development of the blockchain technology as a pilot client and remains on the platform with its marine hull portfolio.

Shaun Crawford, EY Global Insurance Leader, says:

"It is a proud moment for a number of heavy weight industry participants to be live with a genuine end-to-end blockchain platform in the specialty insurance market. All parties have worked extraordinarily hard, as a closely knit team, to get to this exciting milestone. To move from proof of concept just a year ago to a fully functioning platform that is delivering immediate value to clients feels exceptional."

The first phase of Insurwave rollout is focused on marine insurance, and EY, Guardtime and Microsoft plan to roll it out to other types of business insurance for the marine cargo, global logistics, aviation and energy sectors.

Mike Gault, Guardtime CEO, says:

"We are very proud of the work we have done with EY in developing this platform, beginning with a proof of concept a year ago and then all the way through to this production release. This represents an important milestone not only for the insurance industry but also for blockchain technology, proving that it can deliver real value to enterprise customers."

 Ronald Attard, EY Malta Managing Partner says:

"Blockchain is now at the center stage of technological innovation with the potential to impact today's, and even more so, tomorrow's business processes and functions. That blockchain impacts your business is now a question of when, not if. The joint venture between EY and Guardtime is solid proof of EY's cutting edge competence in the blockchain space. We are proud to be so well placed to advise our clients and guide them to embrace this change and be part of their long-term success. "

For more information, please see ey.com/insurance_blockchain.