[Proposal setup] Proposal title
Please provide your proposal title
Tamper-Proof Insurance Policies via Blockchain & DIDs
[Proposal Summary] Budget Information
Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA
100000
[Proposal Summary] Time
Please specify how many months you expect your project to last
6
[Proposal Summary] Translation Information
Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated
No
Original Language
en
[Proposal Summary] Problem Statement
What is the problem you want to solve?
Insurance lacks transparency and secure validation, leaving policies and claims prone to fraud, disputes, and inefficiency.
[Proposal Summary] Project Dependencies
Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?
No
Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'
No dependencies
[Proposal Summary] Project Open Source
Will your project's outputs be fully open source?
Yes
License and Additional Information
MIT
[Theme Selection] Theme
Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal.
RWA
[Campaign Category] Category Questions
Describe what makes your idea innovative compared to what has been previously funded (whether by you or others).
Our approach brings a new layer of transparency and security to insurance by issuing policies and claims as CIP-68 NFTs on Cardano. Unlike centralized systems or basic blockchain pilots, this ensures tamper-proof storage, verifiable ownership, and fraud resistance with instant auditability. By combining DID-style identity checks and document anchoring directly on-chain, we offer a more trustworthy, user-controlled model. This innovation has not been funded previously within Catalyst.
Describe what your prototype or MVP will demonstrate, and where it can be accessed.
The MVP will demonstrate insurance policy issuance, claims anchoring, and document retrieval on Cardano testnet. Users can mint, verify, and manage policies as NFTs via a simple front-end interface. Alpine will deliver the UI, while back-end contracts ensure data integrity. All code will be released open-source on GitHub. A live demo environment will be available for the community to test policy creation, claims tracking, and verification workflows in real-time.
Describe realistic measures of success, ideally with on-chain metrics.
Success will be measured both on-chain and off-chain. On-chain metrics include the number of policies minted as NFTs, verified claims, and unique wallet interactions with the smart contract. Off-chain metrics include deployment of the functional front-end, successful testnet demo participation, and community feedback sessions. A fully auditable repo and testnet deployment will serve as tangible proof of delivery, while participation and user adoption confirm real-world readiness.
[Your Project and Solution] Solution
Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem
Policies as On-Chain Assets
- Each insurance policy is issued as a CIP-68 NFT, containing structured metadata (coverage, premium, beneficiary).
- This guarantees tamper-proof storage of agreements while granting the holder full control and transparency.
Sensor-Verified Claims (Parametric Insurance)
- Policies will link to verifiable data streams, such as weather-event recordings or IoT sensors.
- When a client submits a claim, the system checks if the insured property is located in the affected, sensor-verified zone.
- If confirmed, an adjuster signs the claim with their DID, triggering an automatic payout with minimal delay or dispute.
- This innovation introduces a trustless, parametric insurance layer, reducing friction and cutting costs in event-based coverage.
Decentralized Identity (DID) Integration
- Lightweight DID/KYC verification ensures that both policyholders and adjusters are verified.
- Adjuster DIDs provide a cryptographic signature of approval, ensuring claims are legitimate without central gatekeepers.
General Insurance Applicability
- Beyond parametric insurance, the framework supports traditional claims workflows.
- Documents, attestations, and policy amendments can be hashed and referenced on-chain, providing immutable audit trails.
Front-End & Accessibility
- A simple, intuitive web app will allow policyholders to purchase coverage, submit claims, and verify payouts.
- Insurers and regulators can audit claims in real-time, reducing overhead and disputes.
Open Source & Cardano Innovation
- Smart contracts, APIs, and middleware will be released under a permissive license (MIT/Apache 2.0).
- This ensures reusability across projects and expands Cardano’s role in insurance, identity, and verifiable data markets.
How This Addresses the Problem
- Fraud Reduction: Immutable records and DID-signed claims reduce false or inflated claims.
- Trust & Transparency: Sensor-verified event data and automatic payouts eliminate long disputes.
- Efficiency: Smart contract automation cuts administrative costs.
- Scalability: The system can support microinsurance, property, agricultural, and disaster coverage globally.
Deliverables
- Smart contracts for policy minting, claims anchoring, and DID-signed verification.
- Integration of IoT/sensor oracles for parametric triggers (e.g., verified weather events).
- Front-end MVP demo for issuing policies and processing claims.
- Open-source repo with full documentation and reusable modules.
By blending general insurance functions with parametric, sensor-verified payouts, this framework not only modernizes claims handling but also positions Cardano as a leader in verifiable insurance infrastructure worldwide.
[Your Project and Solution] Impact
Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community
Insurance is one of the largest and most globally entrenched industries, but it suffers from structural inefficiencies: opaque claims processes, susceptibility to fraud, delays in payouts, and lack of trust between policyholders and insurers. By leveraging Cardano’s extended UTXO model, CIP-68 NFTs, and decentralized identifiers (DIDs), our project demonstrates a new paradigm: insurance that is cryptographically verifiable, sensor-anchored, and transparently executed on-chain.
Expanding Real-World Utility
- While much of the blockchain space has focused on DeFi, our framework shows Cardano’s ability to support real-world, high-value applications in risk management and consumer protection.
- This not only differentiates Cardano from competitors but also helps attract new sectors — insurers, reinsurers, governments, and NGOs — into the ecosystem.
Trust, Transparency, and Fraud Reduction
- Policies are represented as NFTs (CIP-68), creating immutable, traceable contracts.
- Claims are validated through decentralized identity attestations and verified weather/sensor data, reducing fraudulent claims and disputes.
- Adjuster approvals are cryptographically signed with DIDs, ensuring accountability.
Fast, Fair, Automated Payouts
- When a policyholder submits a claim, the system can verify whether the house or asset is within the geolocation of a sensor-recorded weather event (e.g., hurricane, wildfire, flood).
- Once verified, the claim can be auto-approved and paid out without bureaucracy.
- This brings enormous social value, particularly in disaster scenarios where immediate relief is critical.
Template for Decentralized Insurance Globally
- While we begin with parametric weather-linked insurance, the same model can extend to crop insurance, health coverage, travel protection, and micro-insurance for underserved communities.
- By open-sourcing components, we empower other Cardano builders to replicate and innovate in parallel, growing the ecosystem.
** ReFi and Social Good**
- This project complements Cardano’s regenerative finance ethos.
- Farmers, homeowners, and small businesses — often the most vulnerable in disaster-prone areas — gain affordable, verifiable protection.
- Governments and NGOs can adopt the framework for disaster aid distribution, ensuring funds reach verified victims faster, with no leakage.
Mainstream Cardano Adoption
- Insurance is universally understood, which makes it a powerful bridge for mainstream users to interact with blockchain.
- Demonstrating a hurricane payout or crop insurance claim that is instantly processed via Cardano will resonate far more broadly than abstract DeFi metrics.
- This makes Cardano visible as the blockchain capable of practical, human-centered solutions.
[Your Project and Solution] Capabilities & Feasibility
What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?
Our team brings together a mix of blockchain engineering, insurance expertise, and governance experience that makes this project both technically feasible and industry-relevant.
Dominick "Dagwell" Garey – Full Stack Cardano Developer
Specializes in Plutus smart contracts, Aiken validators, and blockchain integrations. Experienced in building Cardano-native solutions, including CIP-68 NFT frameworks, identity anchoring, and decentralized transaction flows.
Derrick "Alpine" Oatway – Full Stack Developer
Focuses on middleware, front-end integration, and backend scalability. Brings the ability to connect Cardano-based logic with user-facing applications, ensuring seamless delivery of blockchain-powered insurance processes.
Deryck "Quasar" Lance – Insurance & Governance Expert
Provides domain expertise in insurance policy design, claims processing, and risk models. Deeply involved in Cardano governance, ensuring compliance, community alignment, and long-term sustainability of decentralized solutions.
Together, our complementary skills ensure we can deliver both the technical blockchain infrastructure and the industry-grounded processes that make an insurance framework viable.
Feasibility
We will validate the solution through:
Prototype Deployment: Building and testing smart contracts that verify weather events against insured properties and anchor claims on-chain.
Pilot Testing
Running closed pilots with sample policyholders and adjusters, verifying DID-based approvals and automatic payouts.
Community Testing & Open Source
Publishing code, documentation, and results openly to the Cardano community for review and adoption.
By combining technical excellence with insurance know-how and governance alignment, our team is well positioned to deliver this project with high levels of trust, accountability, and long-term impact.
[Milestones] Project Milestones
Milestone Title
Architecture & Prototype Development
Milestone Outputs
- System architecture finalized for Cardano-based insurance framework.
- Smart contract prototypes for CIP-68 NFT insurance policies and DID integration.
- Testnet deployment of basic policy creation and anchoring.
- Technical documentation outlining contract logic and architecture decisions.
Acceptance Criteria
- Users can mint and hold insurance policy NFTs on testnet.
- DID integration functions for policyholder and adjuster identity.
- Contracts compile successfully and pass unit tests.
- Architecture design reviewed internally by the team.
Evidence of Completion
- GitHub repository with open-source smart contracts.
- Public documentation on architecture and contract design.
- Recorded demo of testnet deployment showing NFT insurance policy creation.
Delivery Month
2
Cost
25000
Progress
20 %
Milestone Title
Prototype Development
Milestone Outputs
- Develop front-end dashboard for policy issuance and claim submission with clean UI.
- Integrate backend APIs to Cardano testnet contracts for real-time policy + claim handling.
- Add wallet connection flow (CIP-30) for DID-linked accounts.
Acceptance Criteria
- Users can connect wallets and create a DID-linked insurance policy.
- Claims submitted via UI flow correctly reach backend and validate on testnet.
- Front-end passes integration tests for wallet, policy, and claims.
Evidence of Completion
- Live testnet dashboard link accessible with basic login/wallet connect.
- Screenshots/video of UI workflow from wallet connect → policy issuance → claim validation.
- Public GitHub repo showing UI + backend integration code.
Delivery Month
4
Cost
25000
Progress
40 %
Milestone Title
Off-Chain Data Integration & Validator Expansion
Milestone Outputs
- Integration with external data feeds for verifying weather/impact events
- Expanded validator to allow claims cross-checked against DID-signed attestations
- Basic calibration pipeline for “sensor → policy → claim verification”
Acceptance Criteria
- Claims must be verified against a defined event data source using the demo pipeline, showing end-to-end functionality from input data to claim validation.
- The system must match event information against on-chain policy and claim records, applying predefined rules to determine claim validity.
- A DID-signed adjuster validation process must be operational on Cardano testnet, allowing adjusters to sign approvals using their DID credentials.
- Verification of the DID signature must be possible by independent parties through smart contract logic, ensuring trust and transparency.
- At least one successful testnet transaction must demonstrate the complete flow: event data, claim validation, DID signature, and on-chain verification.
Evidence of Completion
- Open-source repository containing smart contract code, front-end integration scripts, and DID validation logic.
- Documentation outlining the claim verification process, data source pipeline, and adjuster DID signature flow.
- A testnet transaction log demonstrating successful validation of at least one claim.
- Video demo walkthrough showing the pipeline, DID signature process, and testnet verification results.
- Catalyst progress update linking all artifacts for community review and audit.
Delivery Month
5
Cost
25000
Progress
70 %
Milestone Title
Final
Milestone Outputs
- Smart contracts implementing CIP-68 policy/claim framework and DID-signed adjuster validation logic, deployed on Cardano testnet.
- Front-end dashboard prototype that allows policy creation, claim submission, and claim verification demonstrations.
- Event verification demo pipeline that connects external data (e.g., weather events) to on-chain claim checks.
- Documentation covering technical architecture, claim flow, DID integration, and verifier instructions.
- Open-source repository under permissive license (MIT/Apache 2.0) for community reuse and extension.
- Recorded demo video showing full end-to-end flow: policy setup, claim event trigger, adjuster DID signature, and testnet verification.
- Catalyst project updates linking all deliverables for reviewer and community validation.
Acceptance Criteria
- Claims must be verified against a defined event data source using the demo pipeline, showing end-to-end functionality from input data to claim validation.
- The system must match event information against on-chain policy and claim records, applying predefined rules to determine claim validity.
- A DID-signed adjuster validation process must be operational on Cardano testnet, allowing adjusters to sign approvals using their DID credentials.
- Verification of the DID signature must be possible by independent parties through smart contract logic, ensuring trust and transparency.
- At least one successful testnet transaction must demonstrate the complete flow: event data, claim validation, DID signature, and on-chain verification.
Evidence of Completion
- Open-source repository containing smart contract code, integration scripts, and DID validation logic.
- Documentation detailing the claim verification process, demo pipeline, and adjuster DID signature flow.
- Testnet transaction logs demonstrating at least one verified claim.
- Video demo walkthrough showing event data ingestion, DID-signed adjuster validation, and on-chain verification results.
- Catalyst progress update linking all artifacts for community review and independent audit.
Delivery Month
6
Cost
25000
Progress
100 %
[Final Pitch] Budget & Costs
Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources
- Smart Contract Development & Blockchain Integration: 40% (40,000 ADA)
- Front-End Development & UI/UX: 25% (25,000 ADA)
- Event Pipeline & DID Integration: 20% (20,000 ADA)
- Testing, Documentation & Reporting: 15% (15,000 ADA)
Milestone 1 – Core Contracts (Months 1–2): 25,000 ADA
Development and deployment of CIP-68 NFT + DID-based smart contracts for policies and claims. Includes initial testnet deployment and repository setup.
Milestone 2 – Front-End Dashboard (Months 3–4): 25,000 ADA
UI/UX design and implementation, wallet integration, and claim/policy management interface. Covers development and QA testing.
Milestone 3 – Event Verification Integration (Months 5–6): 25,000 ADA
Integration of external event data pipeline (demo source), claim auto-check logic, and DID-signed adjuster validation process. Includes validation testing on testnet.
Milestone 4 – Pilot MVP & Final Demo (Months 7–8): 25,000 ADA
End-to-end pilot deployment with full policy-to-claim workflow, recorded demo, open-source repository, and documentation.
[Final Pitch] Value for Money
How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?
- The project delivers reusable infrastructure for decentralized insurance, DID-based trust systems, and event-driven claim verification on Cardano.
- The total requested budget is 100,000 ADA, distributed across four milestones with clear deliverables and outputs.
- Every ADA requested is tied to measurable outcomes including code, testnet demos, documentation, and recorded walkthroughs.
- The development approach is lean and efficient, with funds directed toward engineering and ecosystem value rather than administrative overhead.
- All smart contracts, DID modules, and integration scripts will be open-sourced under a permissive license, ensuring maximum community reuse.
- The DID-signed validation workflow can be adapted for other industries, including carbon credits, decentralized lending, DAO governance, and academic credentialing.
- The infrastructure lowers the barrier to entry for other builders, multiplying ecosystem impact beyond this project.
- Developers in the community will gain access to tested, documented codebases that can be integrated into their own applications.
- The project strengthens Cardano’s DID ecosystem by operationalizing decentralized identity in a practical insurance use case.
- Demonstrations on Cardano testnet will provide one of the first real examples of DID-backed claim verification.
- This work advances CIP adoption and wallet integration for DID, creating momentum for identity-driven applications in Cardano.
- DID-signed workflows enable trust, auditability, and compliance, increasing the credibility of Cardano for enterprise adoption.
- The project demonstrates Cardano’s ability to serve the insurance industry, a multi-trillion-dollar global market.
- Claim validation on-chain shows how blockchain can provide transparency, automation, and cryptographic assurance in real-world financial systems.
- A functioning MVP creates opportunities for enterprise pilots, insurer partnerships, and potential commercial adoption.
- Cardano gains visibility as a blockchain suited for regulated, high-value industries like insurance and risk management.
[Required Acknowledgements] Consent & Confirmation
Terms and Conditions:
Yes