Sydney-based Hillridge says its mission is to help farmers mitigate the financial impact of poor weather on their crops or livestock in a way that goes well beyond existing crop or livestock insurance. The platform offers affordable weather insurance against risks local insurers may not cover, such as drought, frost, heat and too much rain. It takes weather data, machine learning, and personalization based on farmers’ production to provide insurance and self-executing contracts based on blockchain.
The startup was recently awarded a $US200,000 ($277,362) grant by the NEAR Foundation to develop a blockchain-based parametric insurance platform for tropical storms, to be piloted on typhoons in Vietnam.
The Insurtech Australia member launched last year locally with Marsh, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, and distributor Nutrien after winning global startup competition the Extreme Tech Challenge. Hillridge says its use of satellite weather data, big data analytics and distributed ledger technologies overcomes insurance’s “efficiency and transparency gaps”.
Its platform generates a price in seconds and triggers automatic payout instructions if adverse weather occurs, allowing policies to be delivered at scale for a fraction of the cost of traditional insurance. Payouts are typically made within days.