Lloyd’s of London-Backed Insurance Policies Can Now Be Paid for in Crypto on Ethereum

Evertas and Nayms use a public blockchain to enable coordination between brokers, insurers and policyholders.

This partnership allows customers to pay with USDC or local cryptocurrency, or settle policies entirely on-chain.

Three-century-old insurance marketplace Lloyd’s of London, with contributions from Lloyd’s insurer Evertas and smart contract insurance provider Nayms, is supporting digital asset protection policies issued on the public Ethereum blockchain that can be paid out natively on-chain using cryptocurrency.

It wasn’t too long ago that any form of crypto insurance coverage was hard to come by. The efficiency benefits of paying for policies with crypto and using a blockchain to streamline intermediary-heavy paperwork, along with a Lloyd’s of London syndicate consortium supporting crypto-native, on-chain insurance, show just how far the industry has come in the past few years.

“What we’re enabling is for people using public blockchain infrastructure to seamlessly interact with highly regulated, traditional, fiat-backed institutions,” Evertas CEO J. Gdanski said in an interview. “Whether it’s paying with USDC or native crypto, or whether it’s settling policies entirely on-chain, with the blockchain providing coordination between a broker, policyholder, and insurers, we think that’s a fundamental piece of infrastructure.”

Nayms, a digital marketplace connecting brokers and insurers with cryptocurrency investments, is a platform inspired by Lloyd’s “Names”, a collection of individuals and companies that undertake risks in the historic insurance market.

Evertas provides coverage to custodians, exchanges and the bitcoin mining industry. Last year, Evertas acquired mining coverage specialist Bitsure and began offering policy limits of up to $200 million per crypto mining location.

“The crypto-native expertise we bring to the underwriting process gives us a comprehensive understanding of the risks we underwrite,” Nick Selby, the firm’s head of European underwriting, said in an interview. “It means we are very clear about what we will and will not cover, and we can pay out insured claims faster than anyone else.”