The Bermuda monetary authority has issued Ensuro Re licenses as an insurance General Business (IGB) and a class T digital asset business. It becomes the first reinsurer authorised to underwrite insurance risk using smart contracts and stablecoins, a cryptocurrency, as solvency capital.
The business is a decentralised capital provider for parametric insurance risk. It aims to provide startup MGAs with easier access to capacity without recourse to re/insurers. Instead, it offers access to a “liquidity pool”, made up of cryptocurrency funds locked in a smart contract on a blockchain. Capital is automatically assigned to policies taken out through Ensuro’s partners.
“Our IGB and DABA licenses are the result of a considerable amount of hard work and research and is an achievement we are proud to share with the BMA,” the company’s CEO and founder Marco Mirabella wrote in a blog. “Their continuous support, collaboration, and thoughtful guidance evidenced Bermuda’s reputation as a fertile environment for insurance innovation and a trailblazer for the integration of digital assets.”
He added: “We view this license as groundbreaking for both the insurance and cryptocurrency industries. Throughout its long history, insurance has developed regulations to protect policyholders’ interests and guarantee the reliability of its participants across the globe. Ensuro has always maintained that to create real-world use cases for crypto-wealth that impact the insurance world, becoming a regulated reinsurance company was a critical step. We are proud to have taken that step.”