Blockchain systems and methods for providing insurance coverage to affinity groups
Blockchain techniques for providing insurance to an affinity group may include an enforcement server that receives a plurality of bidding actions (e.g., bid or no-bid) from a plurality of bidding entities in response to an auction of an opportunity to provide insurance for members of the affinity group. The server may compile transactions corresponding to the received bidding actions into a block of transactions (e.g., a round of bidding), distribute the block of transactions to validation entities to form a consensus on the highest bid, and update copies of a distributed ledger with the block of transactions. The server may identify a winning bid and provide affinity group member data to the winning bidding entity, thereby providing consumers with lower cost insurance and/or insurance that is more reflective of actual risk (or lack thereof). The affinity group may be updated over time and re-auctioned using the blockchain techniques.
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, via one or more network interfaces of an enforcement server, and by using an electronic or communications network, a plurality of bidding actions submitted by a plurality of bidding entities in response to a notification of an auction of an opportunity to provide insurance for an affinity group, the auction administered by the enforcement server via the electronic or communications network;
compiling, by the enforcement server, a plurality of transactions corresponding to the plurality of bidding actions into a block of transactions;
distributing, by the enforcement server, the block of transactions to one or more validation entities to form a consensus on a highest bid corresponding to the block of transactions;
updating, by the enforcement server, a plurality of copies of a distributed ledger with the block of transactions, the plurality of copies of the distributed ledger stored in a plurality of computing devices respectively corresponding to the plurality of bidding entities;
identifying a winning bid for the auction corresponding to the affinity group based upon multiple updates to the distributed ledger, the multiple updates corresponding to multiple blocks of transactions; and
providing, by the enforcement server to a particular bidding entity corresponding to the winning bid, data descriptive of group members of the affinity group for use by the particular bidding entity in generating one or more insurance policies for the affinity group, thereby providing lower cost insurance and/or insurance that is more reflective of actual risk, or lack thereof, to a set of consumers associated with the particular affinity group.
2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising forming, by the enforcement server, the affinity group based upon collected end-consumer data.
3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein membership in the affinity group is pre-defined by a third-party.
4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the affinity group excludes people.
5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 ,
further comprising chaining the block of transactions to one or more other blocks of transactions, and storing the chained blocks of transactions in an auction database; and
identifying the winning bid of the auction corresponding to the affinity group is based upon the chained blocks of transactions stored in the auction database.
6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising securing the data descriptive of the group members of the affinity group, and wherein providing the data descriptive group members the particular affinity group comprises providing the secured data is descriptive of the group members of the affinity group.
7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
generating, by the enforcement server, the notification of the auction of the opportunity to provide insurance for the affinity group;
determining, by the enforcement server and based upon one or more characteristics of the affinity group, more than one bidding entity included in the plurality of bidding entities; and
transmitting, by the enforcement server to respective computing devices of the more than one bidding entity via the electronic or communications network, the notification of the auction corresponding to the affinity group.
8. A system, comprising:
one or more persistent memories storing an auction database;
one or more communication interfaces configured to communicate with remote devices via one or more networks; and
a blockchain manager unit comprising computer-executable instructions that are stored on one or more non-transitory, computer-readable storage media and that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the system to:
compile a plurality of transactions into a block of transactions, the plurality of transactions corresponding to a plurality of bidding actions submitted by a plurality of bidding entities for an auction of an opportunity to provide insurance for an affinity group, and the plurality of bidding actions received at the system via the one or more communication interfaces;
distribute the block of transactions to one or more validation entities to form a consensus on a highest bid corresponding to the block of transactions;
update, via the one or more communication interfaces, a plurality of copies of a distributed ledger with the block of transactions, the plurality of copies of the distributed ledger stored in a plurality of computing devices respectively corresponding to the plurality of bidding entities;
identify a winning bid for the auction corresponding to the affinity group based upon multiple updates to the distributed ledger, the multiple updates corresponding to multiple blocks of transactions;
store, in the auction database, an indication of the winning bid for the auction corresponding to the affinity group and an indication of a particular bidding entity that submitted the winning bid; and
provide, to a computing device corresponding to the particular bidding entity that submitted the winning bid, data descriptive of group members of the affinity group for use by the particular bidding entity in generating one or more insurance policies for the affinity group, thereby providing lower cost insurance and/or insurance that is more reflective of actual risk, or lack thereof, to a set of consumers associated with the particular affinity group.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein each bidding action included in the plurality of bidding actions includes one of a respective bid amount or a respective indication of a no-bid.
10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the block of transactions includes respective indications of (i) a first transaction corresponding to a respective bidding action submitted by a first bidding entity in response to the auction corresponding to the affinity group, and (ii) a second transaction corresponding to a respective bidding action submitted by a second bidding entity in response to the auction corresponding to the affinity group.
11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the block of transactions includes respective indications of (i) a first transaction corresponding to a bidding action submitted by a specific bidding entity in response to the auction corresponding to the affinity group, and (ii) a second transaction corresponding to a bidding action submitted by the specific bidding entity in response to another auction corresponding to another affinity group.
12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the block of transactions corresponds to a single round of bidding for the auction corresponding to the affinity group.
13. The system of claim 8 , wherein membership in the affinity group is pre-defined by a third-party.
14. The system of claim 8 , wherein the affinity group excludes people.
15. The system of claim 8 , wherein:
the block of transactions is a first block of transactions;
the auction database stores one or more other blocks of transactions; and
the blockchain manager unit further causes the system to chain first block of transactions to the one or more other blocks of transactions and store the chained blocks of transactions in the auction database.
16. The system of claim 8 , wherein the data descriptive of the group members of the affinity group is securely transferred, via the one or more communications interfaces, to a computing device corresponding to the particular bidding entity that submitted the winning bid.
17. The system of claim 8 , wherein the blockchain manager unit is included in an enforcement server, and the enforcement server further comprises a management interface unit configured to control aspects of at least one of the distributed ledger or the blockchain manager.
18. The system of claim 8 , wherein the blockchain manager unit is included in an enforcement server, and at least one of the one or more validation entities is included in the enforcement server.
19. The system of claim 8 , wherein the blockchain manager unit is coupled to a public interface configured to allow read-only access to at least some of the information stored in the auction database.
20. The system of claim 8 , wherein a set of bidding entities to which the auction of the opportunity to provide insurance for the affinity group is offered is determined based upon one or more characteristics shared by group members of the affinity group, and wherein the plurality of bidding entities is included in the set of bidding entities.
21. The system of claim 8 , wherein:
the data descriptive of the group members of the affinity group includes first data descriptive of a particular characteristic of a first group member and second data descriptive of the particular characteristic of a second group member;
the first data and the second data are different; and
the first data and the second data are utilized, by the particular bidding entity, to generate respective insurance policies for the first group member and the second group member, the respective insurance policies having different terms respectively determined based upon the first data and the second data.
22. The system of claim 8 , wherein the distributed ledger is included in a plurality of distributed ledgers, and wherein each distributed ledger included in the plurality of distributed ledgers corresponds to a respective auction of a respective opportunity to provide insurance.
23. The system of claim 8 , wherein the set of consumers includes the group members of the affinity group.
24. The system of claim 8 , wherein:
the group members of the affinity group include a set of at least one of a product, a service, or an asset corresponding to the product and/or the service;
the set of the at least one of the product, the service, or the asset is provided by an entity; and
the set of consumers associated with the affinity group comprises the entity.