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future internetArticleBlockchain and Smart Contracts for Insurance: Is theTechnology Mature Enough?Valentina Gatteschi 1,* ID , Fabrizio Lamberti 1 ID , Claudio Demartini 1, Chiara Pranteda 2 andVíctor Santamaría 31 Politecnico di Torino, Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino,Italy; [email protected] (F.L.), [email protected] (C.D.)2 Reale Group Innovation Team, Via Corte d’Appello 11, 10129 Torino, Italy; [email protected] Reale Group Innovation Team, Príncipe de Vergara, 125, 28002 Madrid, Spain;[email protected]* Correspondence: [email protected]: 30 December 2017; Accepted: 14 February 2018; Published: 20 February 2018Abstract: Blockchain is receiving increasing attention from academy and industry, since it isconsidered a breakthrough technology that could bring huge benefits to many different sectors.In 2017, Gartner positioned blockchain close to the peak of inflated expectations, acknowledgingthe enthusiasm for this technology that is now largely discussed by media. In this scenario, the riskto adopt it in the wake of enthusiasm, without objectively judging its actual added value is ratherhigh. Insurance is one the sectors that, among others, started to carefully investigate the possibilitiesof blockchain. For this specific sector, however, the hype cycle shows that the technology is still inthe innovation trigger phase, meaning that the spectrum of possible applications has not been fullyexplored yet. Insurers, as with many other companies not necessarily active only in the financialsector, are currently requested to make a hard decision, that is, whether to adopt blockchain or not,and they will only know if they were right in 3–5 years. The objective of this paper is to supportactors involved in this decision process by illustrating what a blockchain is, analyzing its advantagesand disadvantages, as well as discussing several use cases taken from the insurance sector, whichcould easily be extended to other domains.Keywords: blockchain; bitcoin; insurance; smart contracts1. IntroductionA blockchain is a distributed ledger maintained by network nodes, recording transactionsexecuted between nodes (i.e., messages sent from one node to another). Information inserted inthe blockchain is public, and cannot be modified or erased [1]. Smart contracts are self-executingcontracts (generally saved on a blockchain) whose terms are directly written into lines of code [2].Recently, blockchain and its relations with smart contracts has received increasing attention frommedia, which started to address it as “The next big thing” [3], “The new black”, “The philosopher’sstone” [4] or “The new Graal” [5]. In [6], blockchain has been compared to inventions such as the steamor combustion engine, since it is potentially able to bring benefits to a variety of everyday activitiesand business processes.According to Gartner’s hype cycle, blockchain is at the peak of inflated expectations, where theenthusiasm is at the highest level possible [7]. Nonetheless, concerns started to be expressed as wellabout a massive adoption of blockchain [5,8–13]. The common denominator in the above concernsis that technology is considered, on the one hand, to be not fully mature yet [5,9] and, on the otherhand, to be overhyped [8], since its application often produces outcomes that could be achieved usingwell-mastered alternatives [10].Future Internet 2018, 10, 20; doi:10.3390/fi10020020 www.mdpi.com/journal/futureinternetFuture Internet 2018, 10, 20 2 of 16The risk is that one is so much in love with this technology that it becomes impossible forone to objectively judge its true benefits. As stressed by Adam Cooper, a technical architect of theBank of England, “[With blockchain] the focus as always should be on fulfilling user needs, not onimplementing technologies simply because they are clever or interesting.” [11].The insurance sector, as with many others, started to investigate the application ofblockchain technology through considerable investments from both big and small companies [14,15],investigations from consultancy firms [4,16,17], and the creation, in 2016, of the B3i, the firstblockchain-centered insurance consortium [18].The hype cycle for the insurance sector [19], however, depicts blockchain technology at thebeginning of the curve connecting the technology trigger phase with the peak of inflated expectation,meaning that this technology has not been fully explored yet in this particular sector. Hence, thequestions that insurance companies are asking themselves right now are “Are there clear use casesexploiting blockchain technology and smart contracts in the insurance sector?”, “In case we want toadopt a blockchain, what is the most suitable blockchain architecture for our needs?” and, more ingeneral, “Is blockchain technology mature enough for insurance?”. It has been estimated that they willneed to wait about 3 to 5 years to see whether they made the right choice today by deciding to investor not in blockchain for their business [20].The objective of this paper is to help companies operating in the insurance sector to answer theabove questions by providing an overview of blockchain- (and smart contracts-) based use cases insuch specific sector, and by highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for thistechnology. The authors decided to focus on insurance because, in this sector, blockchain technologycould have a relevant impact on a variety of processes and application scenarios. Notwithstanding,it is worth observing that, despite the focus on the particular domain the authors are operating into,many of the examples provided and considerations made throughout the paper could be helpful for anumber of other companies, not necessarily from the financial domain. In fact, the aim is to stimulatereflections and discussions on this topic, leaving to the reader the final judgment on the actual benefitsthat could come from the adoption of the considered technology in a specific scenario.The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of the blockchain technology,by presenting its key concepts. Section 3 discusses several use cases from the insurance sector, bymentioning prototype solutions available so far. Discussion is complemented by Section 4, whichreports a SWOT analysis performed on a wider context to broaden the scope of the analysis beyondthe insurance domain. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section 5.2. How Blockchain WorksThe blockchain (literally, a “chain of blocks”) made its first appearance in the research scenario in2008, in the frame of the Bitcoin initiative [21,22]. The objective was to transfer online payments fromone party to another, without relying on intermediaries. In this context, the blockchain was actingas the underlying ledger recording Bitcoin transfers and guaranteeing, by means of cryptographicoperations, the authentication and non-repudiation of payments.Even though Bitcoin is, by far, the most famous cryptocurrency, it is not alone. In fact, since 2008,more than 1300 cryptocurrencies have been created [23], which are being used as exchange tokens inmany different blockchain-based applications.The core concepts behind the blockchain technology are reported in the following.– Transactions: each cryptocurrency transfer from one subject to another is represented as atransaction from A to B. Cryptocurrency is neither a physical nor a software object, but the resultof incoming and outgoing transactions. For this reason, the blockchain keeps track of all thetransactions occurred from its birth.– Blocks: transactions are grouped in blocks. Each block collects all the transactions occurring ina given timeframe and keeps a reference to the preceding block (that is where the concept of“chain” comes from).Future Internet 2018, 10, 20 3 of 16– Nodes: instead of being stored in a centralized database, the blockchain is spread over networkcomputers (the “nodes”), each containing a local copy of the entire blockchain.– Majority consensus: since a central authority is missing, decisions on the network are madeaccording to a majority consensus. Each node modifies its local copy of the blockchain to make itmirror the status of the majority of the network nodes.– Mining: nodes could either passively store a copy of the blockchain, or actively take part tothe maintenance of the blockchain, in the so-called “mining” process. During mining, nodescheck previous transactions to verify whether a subject is entitled to spend a given amountof cryptocurrency and, each time a block has to be added to the chain, solve a complexcomputational-intensive mathematical problem. This problem was specifically designed tolimit the possibility for a malicious entity to manipulate the blockchain by falsifying transactions.The probability of attacks is extremely low, since adding a new (malicious) block or modify apreviously added block to the chain would require control of the majority of the network nodes(to make them agree with the modification).– Wallet: people transfer cryptocurrency using wallets. Cryptocurrency cannot be stored on aphysical memory; rather, it is the result of previous transactions. Hence, the wallet only storescredentials (a complex, unchangeable combination of automatically assigned numbers and letters),which enable blockchain users to transfer cryptocurrencies they own. Each wallet is associated toone (or more) unique addresses. Should a user want to send a given amount of cryptocurrency toa peer, he/she would have to specify the recipient’s address and the desired amount, and usehis/her credentials to validate the transaction. This aspect is particularly important, since in caseof credentials loss, the cryptocurrency owned by the user would not “disappear”, but the userwould be no more able to spend it. Moreover, the fact that the user validates the transaction withhis/her credentials certifies that he/she was the actual initiator of the transaction.In order to better understand how the blockchain works, it could be worth considering the exampleshown in Figure 1. In the depicted scenario, Alice wants to send some amount of cryptocurrency fromher wallet (with address “x1z”) to Arthur’s wallet (with address “v4y”).Future Internet 2018, 10, 20 3 of 16? Nodes: instead of being stored in a centralized database, the blockchain is spread over networkcomputers (the “nodes”), each containing a local copy of the entire blockchain.? Majority consensus: since a central authority is missing, decisions on the network are madeaccording to a majority consensus. Each node modifies its local copy of the blockchain to makeit mirror the status of the majority of the network nodes.? Mining: nodes could either passively store a copy of the blockchain, or actively take part to themaintenance of the blockchain, in the so?called “mining” process. During mining, nodes checkprevious transactions to verify whether a subject is entitled to spend a given amount ofcryptocurrency and, each time a block has to be added to the chain, solve a complexcomputational?intensive mathematical problem. This problem was specifically designed to limitthe possibility for a malicious entity to manipulate the blockchain by falsifying transactions. Theprobability of attacks is extremely low, since adding a new (malicious) block or modify apreviously added block to the chain would require control of the majority of the network nodes(to make them agree with the modification).? Wallet: people transfer cryptocurrency using wallets. Cryptocurrency cannot be stored on aphysical memory; rather, it is the result of previous transactions. Hence, the wallet only storescredentials (a complex, unchangeable combination of automatically assigned numbers andletters), which enable blockchain users to transfer cryptocurrencies they own. Each wallet isassociated to one (or more) unique addresses. Should a user want to send a given amount ofcryptocurrency to a peer, he/she would have to specify the recipient’s address and the desiredamount, and use his/her credentials to validate the transaction. This aspect is particularlyimportant, since in case of credentials loss, the cryptocurrency owned by the user would not“disappear”, but the user would be no more able to spend it. Moreover, the fact that the uservalidates the transaction with his/her credentials certifies that he/she was the actual initiator ofthe transaction.In order to better understand how the blockchain works, it could be worth considering theexample shown in Figure 1. In the depicted scenario, Alice wants to send some amount ofcryptocurrency from her wallet (with address “x1z”) to Arthur’s wallet (with address “v4y”).Figure 1. Performing transactions on the blockchain.Alice makes a statement in which she specifies the amount to be transferred as well as therecipient of the transfer, and validates this message with her credentials (for sake of readiness, the? Rose sent 200 to Alice? Alice sent 100 to Bob? Bob sent 5 to Charlie? Jeff sent 43 to Bill? Julia sent 40 to Alice? …? …AliceAlice broadcasts themessage to thenetworkSend to ArthurArthurEach block containsrecordings of severalprevious transactionsThe blockchainis stored onnetwork nodesNodes check if the message was actually sent by Alice and ifshe owns the money she wants to transfer (by comparingincoming and outcoming transactions).If so, they add the transaction to a block (which also containsother transactions occurred in the same time frame)#1 #2 #3 #4The blockchain isa collection ofordered blocksThe added block contains thetransaction from Alice to ArthurIn order to add the newblock to the blockchain, thenodes have to solve acomplex mathematicalproblem (mining)The problem is finding arandom number that, ifcombined with a numericsummary of the previousblock, provides a given result+ 1531 =+ 6486 =+ 385 =… … …When the problem issolved, the new block isadded to the blockchain? Alice sent 2 to Arthur? Bill sent 30 to Jeff? …? …Arthur receivesthe moneyx1yv4yFigure 1. Performing transactions on the blockchain.Future Internet 2018, 10, 20 4 of 16Alice makes a statement in which she specifies the amount to be transferred as well as the recipientof the transfer, and validates this message with her credentials (for sake of readiness, the image reportsusers’ names instead of their addresses). Then, she broadcasts the message to the network. Networknodes verify if the message’s sender was actually Alice (by verifying if the message was correctlyvalidated using her credentials), and check if she possesses the amount to be transferred. In order toperform this check, they use their local copy of the blockchain and analyze incoming and outgoingtransactions from Alice’s wallet address that are stored in previous blocks. If the message sent byAlice is valid and she is entitled to spend the money, they add Alice’s transaction, together with othertransactions occurring in the same time frame, to a block. In order to add the block to the blockchain,they then start solving a complex mathematical problem, where they have to find a random numberthat, combined with a numeric summary of the previous block, provides a given result. During this(mining) process, the fastest node receives a monetary reward. When a valid result is found, the newblock is added to the blockchain. As a result, Arthur receives the money.The above example should have allowed the reader to get better acquainted with the maincharacteristics of the blockchain, which make it a disruptive technology:– Decentralized validation: the validation of transactions is performed by network nodes withoutthe need of intermediaries;– Data redundancy: each network node has a local copy of the blockchain, which preventsdata losses;– Data immutability: data stored in the blockchain could not be modified or deleted;– Trust: cryptography enables trust between parties, since a transaction that has been validatedusing user’s credentials cannot be repudiated;– Transparency: everyone could read the blockchain and the transactions stored in it.Though the example in Figure 1 refers to a transfer of cryptocurrency, application possibilities ofthe blockchain are not limited to monetary assets, but could encompass a wide variety of use cases.A

mong the early application scenarios that were explored for the blockchain, it is worth recallingthe notarial context. In fact, since the blockchain is immutable and publicly available, researcherssuggested using it for storing public records and attestations [1]. Another domain where the blockchainhas been recognized to be able to bring significant benefits is intellectual property protection. In thiscontext, blockchain technology could be used to prove/certify the existence of a document at a giventime [24]. In contexts where, e.g., freedom of thought is threatened, blockchain technology could beused to store information in order to avoid censorship [25]: in fact, everyone can write information onthe blockchain and read it.As time has passed, researchers have realized that the blockchain could also be used to store otherkinds of assets, including pieces of code. It was the birth of “smart contracts”, i.e., small programsstored in the blockchain and programmed to autonomously behave in a given manner when someconditions are met.The idea of a smart contract has been known since the 90s [26], but it was only with the blockchaintechnology—and, in particular, with the Ethereum blockchain (probably the most famous blockchainafter Bitcoin)—that smart contracts were able to unleash their full potential [27].With a smart contract, a person could, for instance, encode his/her will in the blockchain in theform of a set of rules. In case of death, the smart contract could then automatically transfer the testator’smoney or other kind of assets to the beneficiary. The testator may also provide additional constraints,such as enabling the transfer only when the beneficiary reaches the age of majority, when he/sheobtains a diploma, etc.Since smart contracts’ conditions are based on data stored in the blockchain, they need to relyon external services, which take data from the “real” world (e.g., from death records) and push themto the blockchain (or vice versa). These services are referred to as “oracles” [28]. By consideringthe testator’s example, an oracle could inspect death records to identify whether the person passedFuture Internet 2018, 10, 20 5 of 16away. If so, it could write this information on the blockchain (e.g., by changing the value of a Booleanvariable indicating whether the person is alive or not). The smart contract, then, would trigger aconditional statement (based on the value of the variable), and execute the block of code initiating themoney transfer.Based on the type of information collected and on the interaction with the external world, oracleshave been grouped into “software”/“hardware” oracles, and “inbound”/“outbound” oracles [29].Software oracles are in charge of extracting information mainly from Web sources, whereas hardwareoracles are meant to extract information from the physical world (e.g., through sensors). Inboundoracles insert information in the blockchain, whereas outbound oracles allow smart contracts to sendinformation to the external world (e.g., letting hotels’ intelligent lockers unlock themselves as soon asa person pays for a night).Oracles have a huge responsibility in the correct execution of smart contracts, as the insertionof wrong information could trigger a money transfer without possibility of refund. Thus, there arecompanies that have developed oracles that certify the authenticity of extracted data for a smallcost [28]. In some cases, it could be worth relying on more than one oracle, e.g., by considering asituation as “happened” if 3 out of 5 oracles confirm it [30].Recently, an even more complex application of smart contracts and oracles was proposed, whichis associated to the concept of Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAOs [31]. In this context,smart contracts are used to encode rules to govern an organization, e.g., how decisions are taken,the weight of each member’s vote, etc. The advantage is that no external party is required to verifythat the organization is properly managed, and underlying rules can be verified by the wider public,ensuring transparency and trust.From the architectural point of view, it is worth remarking that there exist different types ofblockchains, which differ in terms of read/write permissions. “Public blockchains” (such as the Bitcoinblockchain) are blockchains that could be readable and potentially writable by everyone. “Privateblockchains” are blockchains that could be written only by organization members. Read permissionscan be either restricted to the organization, or made public. In “consortium blockchains”, a set ofselected nodes belonging to different institutions control validation, and the blockchain is used toshare information among participant institutions. Public blockchains are particularly useful whenno central entity is available to verify a transaction, and full decentralization is needed. Privateand consortium blockchains provide some advantages, such as lower validation costs and shortervalidation times (given the fact that, because of the smaller number of nodes, the mathematical problemcan be simplified), reduced risk of attacks (since nodes that validate transactions are known) andincreased privacy (as read permissions could be granted only to selected nodes). Furthermore, in caseof errors or bugs in smart contracts, private and consortium blockchains could extraordinarily modifyor revert previous transactions.The choice of the type of blockchain to adopt should be based on the amount of decentralizationrequired, and on time/cost constraints [8,32]. Eventually, some hybrid solutions, exploiting cross-chainexchange layers between public and private blockchains, could be exploited [33], e.g., by using aprivate blockchain for a company’s backend activities and a public blockchain for receiving/sendingmoney from/to customers. Finally, it must be underlined that, when selecting the blockchain touse, one should pay attention to avoiding decentralization for the sake of itself. In fact, a number ofcompanies’ processes are currently managed in a successful way using relational databases, and theswitch to a (private) blockchain could not be worth the effort [8,32]. With respect to private blockchainsversus centralized databases, experts argue that “the biggest advantages of private blockchains incomparison to centralized databases are cryptographic auditing and known identities. Nobody cantamper with the data, and mistakes can be traced back” [34]. Others suggest that a blockchain could bea solution more suitable than a database only in case a company “plans to start privately and evolveinto a regular public blockchain for public cross-verification as demand/volume grows” [34].Future Internet 2018, 10, 20 6 of 163. Blockchain Applications in Insurance: Selected Use CasesAs illustrated in the previous section, advantages of blockchain are various. A number ofenthusiasts already proposed using this technology in various sectors and contexts, including:– Government [35], to record in a transparent way citizens’ votes, or politicians’ programs (forverifying if promises made have been kept) or to enable autonomous governance systems [36];– Intellectual property [24], to certify the proof of existence and authorship of a document;– Internet [25], to reduce censorships, by exploiting the immutability of data stored inthe blockchain;– Finance [37], to transfer money between parties without having to rely on banks;– Commerce [38], to record goods’ characteristics as well as their ownership, especially for luxurygoods, thus reducing the market of counterfeit/stolen items;– Internet of Things (IoT) [39–41], e.g., by exploiting smart contracts to automatically processdata coming from sensors, in order to let intelligent machines interact with each other [42] andautonomously take actions when specific situations occur;– Education [43], to store information on qualifications acquired by learners, e.g., to reduce jobapplication frauds; in this context, multiple actors (e.g., universities, training institutions, etc.)could write qualifications achieved by a person on the blockchain; human resources staff couldthen easily obtain information about when and where a given competency was obtained.A rather comprehensive overview of applications developed in each of the above sectors can befound in [32,44]. What should be evident from the above list is that benefits deriving from the adoptionof blockchain technology are not limited to a single sector/scenario. Moreover, even within a givensector, blockchain can have different impacts considering the various stakeholders operating in it, theirbusiness models, their needs, etc.In the following, the attention will be specifically devoted to the insurance sector, where theuse of blockchain could positively affect different internal processes (from customer acquisitionand management, to frauds prevention, etc.) and could even allow companies to reach newmarkets [4,16,17,32]. In particular, a selection of use cases that could potentially benefit from blockchaintechnology will be introduced. For some use cases, prototype implementations have already beendeveloped. In other cases, the use of blockchain has been only analyzed from a theoretical point of view.For each use case, advantages, disadvantages and impact on the insurance domain will be discussed.3.1. Improvement of Customer Experience and Reduction of Operating CostsIn this use case, blockchain and smart contracts could be exploited to increase the speed of claimprocessing as well as to reduce the costs (and mistakes) associated with the manual processing ofclaims. From this perspective, a smart contract could encode the rules for enabling the transfer ofrefund from the company to the insured.A simple application could consist of triggering an automatic transfer of refund only if thecustomer repairs the car at a certified mechanic, with the mechanic sending a transaction to the smartcontract to prove its identity.More complex use cases could also involve oracles to gather information from the real world.To make an example, in crop insurance an oracle could periodically check weather data and push thisinformation in the blockchain. A smart contract could then read these data, and trigger a payment incase of persistence of bad weather.These problems have been dealt with, for instance, in the prototype presented in [45]. In this case,the focus is on travel insurances, and the idea is to exploit a smart contract developed on the Ethereumblockchain for automatically refunding travelers if their flight/train was delayed.Another interesting use case, which could widely benefit from the increasing diffusion of sensors,is the exploitation of smart contracts in combination with IoT. For instance, homes could be equippedFuture Internet 2018, 10, 20 7 of 16with sensors that can directly notify a smart contract of a damage (e.g., damp sensors could be used tomonitor damages on the roof) [46]. Similarly, smart appliances could automatically monitor their state,and initiate a claim or directly contact the repairer for a quicker assistance when needed.Solutions such as the ones envisioned above bring benefits to different actors: to the insurancecompany, which could reduce the amount of resources normally devoted to claim processing, but alsoto customers, who would receive money even before having become aware of the damage.Another advantage would come from the fact that everyone could inspect the smart contract.That is, the customer undersigning a policy would get a clear idea of its contractual conditions (eventhough, at the moment, he/she should master some programming skills in order to understandthe smart contract code). Consequently, it would become easier for him/her to compare policies.Furthermore, the choice of a policy would no more based only on how much he/she trusts a givencompany (since trust would be implicitly guaranteed by the smart contract), but on objective data.Despite these advantages, it must be said that the scenario above could be adopted only for alimited number of policies. In fact, the majority of claims processed by insurance companies still needto be evaluated by an external expert before being settled. In case of manual processing, however,the customer experience could still be improved by managing payments in cryptocurrencies, whosetransfer would be quicker than with traditional methods (several seconds or minutes depending onthe blockchain used).From the architectural point of view, probably the most suitable choice is to adopt a combinationof private and public blockchains. The private blockchain could be used to record policies andclaims data, whereas the public blockchain could be used to trigger the refund in terms of tradablecryptocurrencies (such as Ethers or Bitcoins). The private blockchain could be maintained by trustedcompany’s computers/nodes characterized by lower mining costs with regard to those of publicblockchains. The public blockchain would be maintained by the wider public, through the miningincentives presented in Section 2. Alternatively, the company could decide to exploit only a publicblockchain. This choice could be successful in case the company needs to improve its own reputationand obtain customers’ trust (as the process would be fully decentralized), but would imply highertransaction costs.3.2. Data Entry/Identity VerificationThe cryptographic mechanism underlying the blockchain could be used to reduce the overheadrelated to manual data entry and verification of new customers [47].With the blockchain, customers would be identified by a unique address (e.g., the one linked totheir wallet). The first time they use a service, a certified intermediary would verify their identity andlink it to their address. From that time on, every time they undersign a policy, they would no moreneed to provide an identification document; rather, they would only need to use their credentials.Benefits of this use case could be seen again in a reduced time and cost to gather/provideinformation.Nonetheless, this use case also has some relevant drawbacks the company should be aware of.A first drawback is related to the possible loss/steal of credentials. As said, since the blockchain workswithout intermediaries, no one could reset users’ credentials. A solution could be to rely on externalservices, which could store credentials and return them to the users in case of loss. However, using suchservices would mean providing someone else access to one’s sensitive information. Another drawbackis linked to the fact that the current legal regulations should be modified to include blockchain-basedidentification, and some governments could refuse to approve this type of identification, e.g., due tomistrust in the technology.From the architectural point of view, companies deciding to exploit blockchain-based Know YourCustomer (KYC) could rely on external services running on public blockchains. In fact, some KYCservices recently appeared, offering some prototypes based on existing blockchains. One example isCivic [48] (based on the Bitcoin blockchain) and KYC Legal [49] (exploiting the Ethereum blockchain).Future Internet 2018, 10, 20 8 of 16Such companies already built a network of validators, which receive a reward for each performedvalidation and charge small fees to companies requiring their services.3.3. Premium Computation/Risk Assessment/Frauds PreventionIn this scenario, the blockchain is used to let multiple certified intermediaries record informationrelated to a person (by linking them to his/her address).Such intermediaries could be insurance companies (e.g., to record previous claims), police officers(e.g., to store criminal acts), medical staffs (e.g., to record a person’s injuries and treatments), or evensmart wearable devices (which could inject in the blockchain data about one’s physical activity).A smart contract could read all the information linked to a person and automatically compute thepremium and perform risk assessment, based on his/her physical health, driving behaviors, etc. [50].Another application scenario is represented by fraud prevention. In this scenario, a smart contractcould analyze collected data and identify frauds during claim processing (e.g., by crossing data relatedto a person’s previous claims).A scenario such as the one depicted in the above examples, however,