There have been many obstacles in solving data and technology issues across the insurance ecosystem and other industries have raised their game with an open-source mindset. In the AAIS Pulse session, Open-Source Solutions for Today’s Insurance Challenges, host Joan Zerkovich, Senior Vice President of Operations at AAIS, led a discussion with Daniela Barbosa, General Manager of Blockchain and Identity at The Linux Foundation and Executive Director of the Hyperledger Foundation, and Hart Montgomery, CTO at the Hyperledger Foundation, to explore what insurance challenges could be addressed in an open-source environment. They examined how initiatives like openIDL are different from past efforts in the industry and how carriers and other stakeholders get involved in leveraging these technologies to define the future of information-sharing in insurance.
Linux Foundation
In 2002, Amazon eliminated millions of dollars from its technology costs by switching to the Linux operating system, an open source technology platform from the Linux Foundation. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Amazon stated it was able to cut technology expenses by about 25%, from $71 million to $54 million, primarily through “migration to a Linux-based technology platform that utilizes a less-costly technology infrastructure, as well as general price reductions for data and telecommunication services due to market overcapacity[1]. Amazon continues its open source technology strategy today, as do thousands of other companies. Today, 96.3% of the world's top one million servers run on Linux[2].
AAIS conducted a Proof of Concept (POC) using the open Insurance Data Link (openIDL) for regulatory reporting. The results demonstrated that this blockchain/distributed ledger technology can dramatically improve both the output and process of insurance regulatory reporting for insurers and regulators.
Regulatory-driven statistical reporting was first established for the insurance industry by the NAIC Property & Casualty Model Rating Law some 70 years ago. And the practices and procedures that underpin insurer statistical reporting have changed little in the decades since. Now, however, statistical reporting is being modernized with the development of the open Insurance Data Link (openIDL). Dina Burgess, Manager of Enterprise Risk Applications at AAIS, talks about the need for this change and the new ease, efficiency and accuracy that characterizes modern regulatory reporting.
AAIS CEO Ed Kelly opened the April 13 edition of AAIS Pulse newsmagazine with an exciting announcement: AAIS has launched openIDL as a Linux Foundation project. The Linux Foundation is the preeminent nonprofit consortium supporting one-source technologies that drive innovation and transform industries.
During the February 2021 AAIS Pulse newsmagazine, AAIS VP Truman Esmond was joined by Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director of Hyperledger, Brian Hoffman, Vice President State and Bureau Regulatory Affairs, at Travelers, and Arron Lamp, Vice President Enterprise Business Intelligence & Analytics & Operations, at Travelers, to discuss the obstacles and opportunities around leveraging open-source technology.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Carrier Management Magazine on August 19, 2019.
I started my career as the first network administrator at the University of California, Davis. Part of my job was to help build the Bay Area Regional Research network, one of 10 National Science Foundation networks that, in 1986, became what we call the Internet today.
IBM, who has partnered with AAIS on the development of the openIDL data-management platform on blockchain, has long been a strong proponent of open-source software development. Chris Ferris, an IBM Fellow and CTO for Open Technology at IBM, spoke to AAIS’s Joan Zerkovich on the importance of the open-source concept and the powerful outcomes IBM has seen from building technology in an open environment.
