Bitcoin Forum

I'm currently training on one of the most leading insurance companies here in the Philippines and I will take my licensure examination this coming Monday.

It just comes to my mind that if ever there will be an insurance company that will accept bitcoin as their premium and bitcoin will also be given for every claims such as death benefit and other more, will it be successful or not? What do you think of this idea?

What insurances specifically ? I hate the entire concept of insurances anyway.One gotta die before repping the benefits of it.

That indirectly chains to the services willing to accept bitcoins.A hospital  should be accepting bitcoins in-order to utilize the claims given by the health insurance company.Not happening anytime soon.

The idea is really good but insurance company will not accept may be because government will have an eye on every transaction, till now government has not given any signals to authorized insurance companies to accept bitcoin as one of the payment method for premiums may be. But one day it is going to happen all companies will start accepting bitcoins.

You know better mate, probably you will gonna be working in that industry. IMO, insurance is only applicable if the insurer can see there will be profit he can make doing the operation, and AFAIK, all insurance requires us to divulge or personal information before we will be enrolled or accepted. I don't think we can do that as we are in the world where anonymity matters most.

Already the same business plan to accept bitcoin into insurance premium was put forth earlier by an user. It would be better to find him and get the required information. I think its a better plan to attract the people who are aware of bitcoin into the insurance as there is several competitors in the same insurance sector.

When bitcoin is started as a currency and people will not feel that there is any hurdle to use bitcoin then they will accept bitcoin in institutes like that. Not only insurance but most of the companies which are running under the government rules will not feel any complication to use bitcoin.

I don't see any particular advantages of Bitcoin in this instance.  Being anonymous/pseudonymous is irrelevant as the insurance policy would have to have the information about the insuree anyway.

Insurance is generally intranational, so no currency exchange is involved.

Speed of transaction isn't important. There is also no risk of chargeback that needs to be stopped.

Am I missing something?

I don't think it would be plausible. Because this would mean that the amount of money they are holding will be very volatile. Another thing is that insurance companies will holding millions of dollars in funds and holding that much in bitcoin is not advisable.

I don't think Bitcoin is recognized as a currency like dollars or euros, so I doubt the payment should legally be given in BTC.

Also in long term contracts BTC may be replaced to another currency, or too scarce that pay me agreed prize would be impossible.

Maybe Bitcoin may be accepted using a 3rd party processor, like Bitpay, like some stores already do.

If you want to pay Bitcoin as insurance better do a custom contract or put your Bitcoins in the heirloom

I have done a summary of Cryptocurrency insurance companies at Cryptocoinzone. However, all companies are in early development and I shouldnt use them as an insurance company yet. They are more for testing right now.

http://www.cryptocoinzone.com/blockchain-insurance/

Good Point.That may lead to Bitcoin Crises leading the Price to peek like never before.Also,not all Insurance companies hold the money as they have their own investment partners like Banks.

It will be outstanding if there are some insurance companies accept Bitcoin. Bitcoin can be used anywhere and anytime because it is digital. You can easily use bitcoin for many purposes. It will be very efficient if a insurance company accept Bitcoin because if it happen, we can buy insurance from other countries or even other continents without paying any fees or having any troubles

It will become succesful if all transactions are within btc to btc transactions. But since it's fiat no way it will become succesful since value of fiat and bitcoin are different in some perspectives. What are the downsides? People are getting deducted (employed) or pays those monthly contributions in "fiat" so how will the insurance companies will deal to that thing if they will give bitcoin in return. Same value of fiat in bitcoin won't work either way.

Insurance covers a big amount of money when someone is claiming so no way it will play with the price volatility of bitcoin.


No you are not getting the picture.

I also have trained to become a financial consultant in one of the largest insurance company in the Philippines. If you heard of Pru-life Uk then you may agree with me. But I did not continue and instead and applied as a clerk. Almost all of insurance company are now integrating the idea that part of your premium in your insurance will fall into investment into the stock market. With this it is possible also for Insurance companies to accept bitcoins since it is familiar with trading  market. But as of this moment the insurance company will not bite this idea since there are only few bitcoin users in the country and that means small market.

If you're insinuating that you pay 0.01BTC/mo (for example) and if you die you get a payout of 100BTC (for example it's not going to happen. If an insurance company accepts bitcoins the payout will not be based on bitcoin prices but the local fiat's value. If bitcoins rose to $2000 or $5000 each the insurance company would go broke. It's like how we don't have bitcoin mortgages because I'm not taking out a huge 200BTC mortgage only to have 200BTC be worth 5x more than the house in the future.

So far I don't know of any company providing this service, but it is certainly something that will happen as a consequence of Bitcoin's advance in the economy. People would have even more incentive to use this if a service was created through smart contracts, which is something that will become possible with the arrival of Bitcoin sidechains.

Edit: I see things are more advanced than I imagined in this regard. Thanks for the information.

I am also a Filipino, concerning about your idea is it  kind of proposal that you like to do in the up coming insurance company? Actually, it is sounds good. But you need to polish it well. Because majority of the filipinos are poor in knowledge about in bitcoin. If you are really serious about it, I might give little help with it. Just pm me only.

Well, bitcoin still has chance to involve in every kind of business related to money, but time will tell.
Yeah, for now maybe it seems impossible or better not to as people identity will reveal. But if government issues some regulations about bitcoin and state it as legal payment than it can be happen. Only if bitcoin become more famous and use by mostly people.

Some of the insurance company may start accepting bitcoin for payments of premiums using third party like bitpay to directly convert it to fiat.
But they may not be able to pay in bitcoin for death claims, they can't hold bitcoin for long time due to price volatility.

They are based on fiat and even a small digit change in bitcoin price may make them to loss thousands or even million of dollars if they hold bitcoin or start accepting direct bitcoin payments.

Its actually not a terrible idea.
Online bill payment via Bitcoin would be a perfect fit. You don't need instant confirmation, an hour or two would be totally acceptable for this purpose.
Taking BTC may save both users and the company on transaction fees associated with credit card payments etc.

Though if they use fiat currency then that would mean it is stable and they would be trusting the fiat currency to remain the same. However, for example, if an insurance company tries to use bitcoins then that would mean they are relying on something unstable and the price is volatile. What if bitcoins crash? That would mean the insurance company will also crash, bye services.

I am not sure whether this will be a reality anytime soon as Insurance companies do run according to the regulations set by the government and i do not think that they would suddenly start accepting bitcoin as a mode of payment ,if it happens it is really a good thing but regulators would not accept bitcoin citing different issues but a third party provider could fix the issue  :)

if you want to make this idea works, I think the insurance should socialize about bitcoin first before giving the contract, and of course to the family all.

I think it is a good idea. you can try it, but probably you will need to explain more about bitcoin to the company first.

It completely belong to company whether to accept are not because most of the insurance companies till are not accepting bitcoin but may be soon they will start accepting bitcoin, it is also one of the confusion to me because bitcoin has price fluctuation so there are less chances to accept bitcoins may be.

I can certainly say that unless Bitcoin is treated as a currency alone and not as a currency and a commodity at the same time( thereby causing volatility and fluctuations) insurance companies and other financial institutions will still be skeptical about its full time adoption and implementation  because it can gain value or devalue at the times of claims and will leave customers unsatisfied.

If they can't tax it they wouldn't accept it.
That should be a question on your exam.

Well, don't know to such serious firms as health insurance take bitcoin as payment. To me it's sounds complicated today, but who knows what is going to be in the future.

But how the government will collect tax from bitcoin transaction. Is this possible? If it is possible means, they must track our transaction then only it is possible to collect tax from all transaction. I think it is very complicated and Govt will not take this much of risk. Before Govt accepts this currency first all small companies must do their business with this bitcoin then only the value of bitcoin will increase, and govt will start to look at this currency. I think it will take a long process.

I dont think soo that this thing would be implemented on insurance companies since owners would not be interested on the price volatility of bitcoin. If bitcoins price would be stabilize maybe it would do but for now i could say its really hard specially if no one on that place knows about bitcoin.

Accepting bitcoin will be very beneficial for the insurance companies as they will be able to earn a good amount of profit on the premium received. However, they should not settle the claims through bitcoin, because, they may be loosing money if they do so.

Bitcoin has a huge potential to go up to any price in near future or within 5-7 years of time. So if the insurance companies start accepting bitcoin as a premium, it will become an investment for them for the future.