TIDES.Network's white paper detailing an open-source generic protocol for pooling assets for mutual insurance, applied to a peer-to-peer health insurance network. v0.8 is an archived white paper, originally published in early 2018, and now made available in ebook format.

ABSTRACT: 

Health insurance today is extremely centralized and has lost cost-effectiveness for most consumers. The distortions caused by asymmetric information, incentive misalignments, and regulatory and political overload have caused an ongoing dramatic increase in premiums, while reducing the quality of coverage. Moreover, traditional insurance companies’ incentives are diametrically opposed to those of its customers, making these problems intractable.

Tides is a peer-to-peer insurance network that uses a decentralized system of functionaries to completely disintermediate the insurance “company”.  In Tides’ peer-to-peer health insurance model, the “insurance company” is disintermediated and self-organizing pools of people set their own governance on all aspects of their insurance, such as coverage, limits, terms, etc., utilizing a decentralized network of actuaries, underwriters and claims processors. Thus, all critical functions in a traditional insurance “company” become disaggregated and distributed across a decentralized network. Built-in incentive structures keep all functionaries honest and efficient. Moreover, members are thoroughly incentivized to exercise judgment in consumption of healthcare resources, as any paid but unspent premiums may be distributed back to members, based on the pool contract terms. 

Anyone can run a peer-to-peer insurance pool as long as they also run a compliance module to keep compliant with the laws that govern mutual insurances in their jurisdiction. 

This model of insurance eliminates asymmetric information and incentive problems that have plagued health insurance for decades. Tides will redefine insurance to once again become an efficient societal safety net. 

Let’s make health insurance open, transparent, and decentralized.

ABOUT TIDES.NETWORK:

Creators of the TIDES.Network Protocol have the perfect balance of Life Sciences, Deep Technical knowledge and Crypto experience. Together, Dr. Chandra Duggirala, M.D., George Burke, and Manoj Duggirala previously founded and ran a hyper-personalized digital nutritionist/nutrition delivery startup that integrated subscribers’ digital health analytics (TryFuel.com) with DNA and other biomarkers to deliver hyper-personalized meals nationwide. They took the concept from idea through successful product development, fundraising, and market execution, building a 7-figure annual run rate (ARR) company in less than 1 year. 

The team envisioned the TIDES project during 2018. Together, they have developed several blockchain initiatives and proofs-of-concept that reenvision Biotech R&D, Intellectual Property rights, Insurance, Cryptoeconomics, Crowdfunding, and Digital Asset Trading/Exchange.