Interesting. What do you suggest?

Insurance Business Magazine has published a wonderful interview with Black's founder Risto.

Start-up entrepreneur’s radical opinion: brokers can bypass insurers

by Gabriel Olano 22 Sep 2018
As insurtech start-ups try to disrupt the insurance industry, a relatively common theme is insurtechs eliminating or reducing the roles of intermediaries such as brokers.

However, one insurance start-up entrepreneur suggests going the opposite way: brokers bypassing insurers. Risto Rossar (pictured), co-founder of Estonian start-up Black Insurance, shared his opinion on innovation in the insurance industry with Insurance Business.

“The ‘operating system’ of insurance … is slow, riddled with red tape, and technologically redundant,” Rossar said. “Insurance products are one of the most obvious bottlenecks. In order for a start-up or other innovator to have the control over the very insurance product they sell, they should have an insurance license, a substantial organisation to support the compliance, and capital in the magnitude of millions, or dozens of...

Read the entire article HERE

Thanks! Funny as it might be, we did exactly what you just described during the last few days. Have 3 reviews now, and just had an almost 1-hour call with one particularly thorough ICOBench reviewer. So I trust a few more reviews should come in soon.

I appreciate this viewpoint but I suggest a different perspective.

We will operate on a two-sided market - insurance brokers on one side, and Black Security Token investors on the other side (not to be confused with the BLCK utility token we will offer on the upcoming ICO; please see the whitepaper to learn about the difference).

Why do we rely on brokers for distribution instead of trying to sell directly to customers? We have seen that ramping up customer base is very hard in insurance. However, we have more and more brokers coming to us to have their products created on our platform, and these guys already have the customers. Thus, we don't need to do large scale marketing - they are doing it instead of us.

On the other side, we have the BST investors. Here, some marketing is definitely called upon, but our strategy is to first work with institutional investors like hedge funds, family offices and all others that already invest in insurance-backed assets. Here, too, our emphasis is on sales outreach rather than on blanket marketing.

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We have some team videos on the Youtube channel, and a few new ones are coming soon.

For instance, we just posted a video with our advisor Taavi Kotka, who is the de facto founder-CEO of something called "Estonian e-residency". Go ahead, google it, it's kind of a big thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmYlUQEU3tw


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I find it quite curious as well. There has been a lot of talk that the ICOBench experts only rate ICO-s that pay them loads of money. In this regard, I'm wondering what's the true value of these ratings? "I approve of this ICO since they paid me 2 BTC"...?

Anyhow, I'll ask our team to reach out to some experts to see if they play ball.

Considering how many complete scam ICO-s there are out there, and that we have a legit team with loads of industry background, they well should look into our ICO, don't you all think?

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Glad to announce that the first ICOBench review is in, and it's not too shabby at all Hope to get some more during the next days.

https://icobench.com/ico/black-insurance/ratings#ratings

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Thanks! I would point out that the ratings that you link to have improved meanwhile, e.g. ICOBench is up at 4.9 points now

Great score from ICOMarks

https://icomarks.com/ico/black-insurance

Please send all offers to info@black.insure, each and every one will be processed, and if there's appetite, we'll come back to you.

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The tokensale platform is open for whitelisting and KYC: https://tokensale.black.insure and the presale will commence on Oct 1.

There're already about 800 singups, a number we expect to increase to ~10 000.

The insurance industry is very big, but also somewhat obscure, so it will not turn out to be a massive pump and dump, but a large share of current signups are with insurance background themselves, looking to be a part of a longer success story we're building in this 4 trillion dollar industry.

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Thanks. Now there are a couple of separate questions here, addressing one by one:

1) Black is a crowdsourcing platform that enables brokers to come up with their own insurance schemes, and fund the schemes by selling "shares" to crypto investors. We already have close to 60 brokers, doing $350M sales annually who want to work with us. These brokers continue to transact with their existing customers, using whichever currency the customers prefer. Once the brokers have received the insurance payments (premiums), they convert it to BLCK tokens and bring to the platform.

The advantages of this approach are twofold: first, we don't have to worry about sales - the brokers already come with the customers, and second, the customers will not have to start using cryptocurrencies and this way we have a far larger target market.

2) We are targeting the European Union market first, since the insurance regulation is the most relaxed here.

3) In terms of helping the communities. First, Black will start issuing "insurance backed security tokens" in the future. This is an absolutely new crypto asset class, and we will pave the way for others to come and create their own crypto-based ETF-s and other crypto securities investment schemes. Second, since insurance industry has been real lazy to cover risks in emerging markets (mainly Africa), Black could potentially help a lot of farmers, artisans and others who currently suffer great losses since no access to insurance.

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Right, the platform is not yet operational.

However, we have:
- a demo: https://www.black.insure/prototype/
- a proof-of-concept solution Rainy Day Insurance: https://rainyday.black.insure

Rainy Day Insurance is an insurance game / proof-of-concept that enables users to win actual BLCK tokens.

It's a case of blockchain based "parametric insurance". You can choose one location and get insurance cover for the case if it rains. Every day it rains, you get 1 BLCK token "compensation"

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The key members of the Black team is listed on our website http://www.black.insure, together with LinkedIn profiles.

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In the broadest of terms, we need to accomplish the following things:

• Finish developing the blockchain enabled insurance platform that lays foundation to Black Insurance's business. Insurance policy administration is a notoriously complex thing, but our staff includes people with ~20 years of policy admin technology experience.
• Become a licensed insurer. In order to enable our users (Syndicates and Brokers) write any insurance policies, we need to be licensed. This requires reserve capital, and also involves significant legal costs.
• Attract Syndicates, Brokers and Investors to join the platform and start transacting business. This requires marketing and sales outreach.

We indeed have plenty of blockchain / insurance related companies on our radar, including Etherisc, Blocksure, Insurepal, ixledger, PolicyPal, ChainThat, fidentiaX, InsurChain, B3i etc.

Now, in my mind, I'm seeing the blockchain / insurance landscape or positioning as follows (from simplest to most complex):

• Service providers create blockchain solutions for the insurance industry, without participating in the insurance vertical themselves
• Products companies create new, innovative insurance products (e.g. parametric insurance, IoT related stuff etc), by establishing a partnership with an insurance company to underwrite the policies, and sell to customers
• Insurance companies are product companies (above) that don't partner with an existing insurer, and attempt to become a licensed insurer themselves
• Marketplaces enable creation, capitalisation and distribution of insurance products for platform members, that can include other insurers, brokers, agents and all insurance industry members. This strategy also requires an insurance license, and much more.

As far as we know, Black is currently the only blockchain / insurance startup that is actively pursuing the marketplace strategy. The part of the value chain our positioning addresses, is the biggest and most fundamental - all insurance products in the world are created and capitalised, and currently the only ways are through an insurance company, or Lloyd's of London. We're adding a third option.

However, please do list interesting competitors, should you know any!

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As for the 2 kinds of tokens:
- Black Platform Tokens (BLCK) are utility tokens. Issuing policies, handling claims and other transactions cost users Black utility tokens (BLCK). There is a finite amount of BLCK, and the only way to transact on Black is to buy BLCK from holders on exchanges.
- Black Syndicate Tokens (BSTx) are securities tokens, and will be issued next year, when we have become a licensed insurance carrier. Syndicates issue BSTx tokens in ICO-s and invest the proceeds in various insurance products, created by the users of Black platform.

Now, what are Syndicates? Syndicates are groups of insurance professionals that create ICO-s on the Black platform, and invest in insurance products, also listed on the Black platform. For instance, some entrepreneur creates a crypto wallet insurance, and a syndicate invests in this product. The product can be now traded, and should it make profits, BSTx token investors share the profits.

Why don't investors invest directly in insurance products? Because managing an insurance product is a professional activity, requiring underwriting, actuary, claims handling and adjustment, and reporting capabilities. This is what Syndicate takes care of, in addition to selecting a well balanced portfolio of different insurance products to invest in.

Other kinds of insurance:

Black platform is product agnostic - users can list any type of product. Life, property, liability etc. It's up to Syndicates to select which products they invest in, and to Investors to decide which Syndicate they fund in ICO-s.

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Black platform is product agnostic - users can list any type of product. Life, property, liability etc. It's up to Syndicates to select which products they invest in, and to Investors to decide which Syndicate they fund in ICO-s.

Now, what are Syndicates? Syndicates are groups of insurance professionals that create ICO-s of BSTx tokens on the Black platform (x representing the number of the Syndicate), and invest in insurance products, also listed on the Black platform. For instance, some entrepreneur creates a crypto wallet insurance, and a syndicate invests in this product. The product can be now traded, and should it make profits, BSTx token investors share the profits.

Why don't investors invest directly in insurance products? Because managing an insurance product is a professional activity, requiring underwriting, actuary, claims handling and adjustment, and reporting capabilities. This is what Syndicate takes care of, in addition to selecting a well balanced portfolio of different insurance products to invest in.

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Please list a few types of information that would be of interest to you! We have tried to provide many answers in the whitepaper, but always on a lookout to identify areas that are interesting to the community.

"How do we differ from other blockchain / insurance projects?" - we get this question a lot.

We indeed have plenty of blockchain / insurance related companies on our radar, including Etherisc, Blocksure, Insurepal, ixledger, PolicyPal, ChainThat, fidentiaX, InsurChain, B3i etc.

Now, in my mind, I'm seeing the blockchain / insurance landscape or positioning as follows (from simplest to most complex):

• Service providers create blockchain solutions for the insurance industry, without participating in the insurance vertical themselves
• Products companies create new, innovative insurance products (e.g. parametric insurance, IoT related stuff etc), by establishing a partnership with an insurance company to underwrite the policies, and sell to customers
• Insurance companies are product companies (above) that don't partner with an existing insurer, and attempt to become a licensed insurer themselves
• Marketplaces enable creation, capitalisation and distribution of insurance products for platform members, that can include other insurers, brokers, agents and all insurance industry members. This strategy also requires an insurance license, and much more.

As far as we know, Black is currently the only blockchain / insurance startup that is actively pursuing the marketplace strategy. The part of the value chain our positioning addresses, is the biggest and most fundamental - all insurance products in the world are created and capitalised, and currently the only ways are through an insurance company, or Lloyd's of London. We're adding a third option.

Hope this provides an answer, at least to a degree. Please don't hesitate to ask for clarification or elaboration.

Thanks!