Innovation intelligence brief
Innovation intelligence brief
Aegon, Allianz, Munich Re, Swiss Re and Zurich have launched the Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative B3i aiming to explore the potential of distributed ledger technologies to better serve clients through faster, more convenient and secure services.
What became of it
Completed · High confidence · Last verified 2026-10-17
As catalogued
Industry consortium of major insurers and reinsurers (Aegon, Allianz, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Zurich) formed in 2016 to build shared distributed-ledger infrastructure for insurance and reinsurance transactions. It was the most prominent attempt at a market-wide blockchain standard in insurance.
2026 reality
B3i no longer operates. Its operating company, B3i Services AG (Zurich), filed for insolvency under Swiss law in July 2022 after unsuccessful funding rounds.
The 2016 exploratory consortium grew to 15+ member companies in 2017. It was incorporated as B3i Services AG in 2018 and raised a Series A of more than USD 20m and a Series B in 2020. In April 2022 Allianz and Swiss Re used its platform to place an excess-of-loss reinsurance contract on DLT. The company then failed to secure further funding and entered insolvency.
according to Swiss Re's CFO, transaction volumes did not justify further investment. The shareholders who used the platform did not refinance it, which suggests that consortium-owned infrastructure lacked a sustainable demand and governance model.
B3i is now a reference case for the limits of consortium-led blockchain in insurance. It showed technical feasibility (live reinsurance contracts on DLT) but no commercial adoption at scale.
Third taxonomy
REVIEW · Verified insolvency (Carrier Management 2022-08-01, Ledger Insights 2022-07-28), founding members, 2017 joiners and Series A/B via Ledger Insights; re-pointed the Series B and insolvency milestones to sources that actually state them (Beinsure does not mention funding rounds).
Documented evidence
Press release
Research interpretation
Classification paths, as catalogued, connect this example to the original insurance digitalization research models.