Traity, an online reputation company, launched Kevin this week: a chatbot that sells micro-insurance for peer-to-peer transactions. The coverage protects buyers and sellers from theft, fraud, scams, a
Traity, an online reputation company, launched Kevin this week: a chatbot that sells micro-insurance for peer-to-peer transactions. The coverage protects buyers and sellers from theft, fraud, scams, and other risks. Traity built Kevin with Suncorp, Australia's largest insurance conglomerate, and plans to release another product in the coming months.
Kevin runs on Facebook Messenger. When you complete a transaction with someone, you message Kevin about it. Kevin sends back a unique link. You forward that link to the other person. Once they get approved, insurance protects the transaction up to $100 at no cost.
Behind the scenes, Kevin checks both users' reputation scores. If both look solid, the system timestamps the agreement on the blockchain. For each transaction Kevin approves, Traity purchases $10 in bitcoin to cover potential liabilities on Kevin's blockchain balance sheet, and the system timestamps the reputation review. When a transaction concludes without problems, Traity sells that $10 in bitcoin. When Kevin pays a claim, Traity adds $100 to Kevin's Open Balance Sheet.
Juan Cartagena, Traity's founder and CEO, explained the approach in a blog post: "The point of our Open Blockchain Balance Sheet is not to be fully decentralized. Our objective was to show transparency and trustworthiness in the way we handle money, we handle policies, we handle balance sheets, we limit leverage, available liquid assets, etc., and to be a project with which other businesses, insurtechs, and insurance companies can get inspired to create more trust in the value chain and financial transparency."
Anyone can inspect and audit the Open Balance Sheet. For each policy Kevin creates, Traity posts a blockchain transaction to track it.
Kevin currently runs on Namecoin, though Traity plans to switch to Ethereum. You can use Kevin in Australia, the US, the UK, and Spain. Traity will release an API for peer-to-peer marketplaces.
Cartagena wrote about traditional insurance: "Insurance is a business where you only communicate with your provider twice. When you buy, which forces you to pay with no immediate benefit, and the moment you claim, which is an unhappy moment regardless." He continued: "Kevin is more of a companion. Some people will use it for all their transactions, maybe once a month, or once a week. So it opens a completely different story about how to engage with an 'insurance service,' a companion who helps you along the way. This is a small concept today, but it can lead to big things in the future."
Traity measures trustworthiness by analyzing online behavior and actions. The platform checks public profiles on Twitter, administers personality tests, and reviews submissions from sites like eBay. Using that data, Traity builds a profile showing someone's reputation and credibility. The platform has over 4.5 million registered users.
Horizons Ventures, Li Ka-Shing's firm in Hong Kong, BDMI (the Bertelsmann group's division in Germany), and Lanta Digital Ventures (Spain) have backed Traity. The company graduated from Europe's Seedcamp and Silicon Valley's 500 Startups.
