(Image credit: Jan Vašek/Pixabay.)
Etherisc (Munich), an open-source, decentralized insurance protocol and ecosystem, has launched its FlightDelay product, which the company describes as a blockchain-backed parametric insurance application that autonomously issues policies and executes payouts for travelers who experience flight delays or cancellations.
Available for passenger flights globally through 80 airlines, insurance policies are purchasable on Etherisc’s dedicated FlightDelay Portal. Payments are processed through blockchain payments platform Gnosis Chain (formerly xDai Chain), with an initial payment option of USDC. Further FIAT and cryptocurrency options are in development, according to an Etherisc statement.
Christoph Mussenbrock, Co-Founder, Etherisc.
“Contacting a traditional provider and applying for an insurance claim is a time-consuming and tedious process, which compounds the frustration of experiencing a flight delay,” comments Christoph Mussenbrock, Co-Founder, Etherisc. “Blockchain has tremendous potential to simplify many aspects of modern life for the better; through the power of automated smart contracts and decentralized oracles, this arduous process is now made simple and hassle free. People can easily sign up for a policy to secure their flight online, turn up at the airport, and receive a fair payment directly to their preferred wallet should their flight be delayed for longer than 45 minutes.”
Combining the decentralized security of the Ethereum network with the decentralized oracle framework of Chainlink (Grand Cayman), FlightDelay provides policyholders with a transparent and secure end-to-end solution for flight insurance, according to the Etherisc statement. Etherisc integrates with Chainlink oracles to access reliable data feeds that help ensure correct and verifiable flight information is used when determining the claims process. By leveraging multiple premium data providers and a decentralized network of Chainlink nodes, Etherisc says it avoids the risk of a single oracle failing or a single data provider reporting inaccurate information or failing to respond.
As a fully decentralized solution, the insurance risk pool for the product will be generated by members of the Etherisc community that actively stake the ecosystem’s native DIP token.
William Herkelrath, Managing Director, Chainlink Labs.
New Levels of Transparency and Speed
“Parametric insurance built using hybrid smart contracts has a real opportunity to disrupt manual claims processing by reducing employee labor, server, software management, and other overhead costs via blockchain-based automation,” says William Herkelrath, Managing Director, Chainlink Labs. “We’re excited to enable Etherisc’s new parametric flight insurance solution by provisioning reliable data feeds on-chain that help its smart contracts determine if flights are delayed. We hope this can bring new levels of transparency and speed to claims processing and demonstrate the many possibilities for hybrid smart contracts in the insurance industry.”
Parametric Insurance: Bridging or Widening the Protection Gap?