Tabit Insurance, a Barbados regulated insurance company founded by a former executive of the now-shrunken cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex, said it raised a $40 million reserve consisting of Bitcoin (BTC) to write traditional insurance and reinsurance businesses.
Insurers appeared in January this year with plans to provide Bitcoin-backed liability policies to the company’s directors and officers (D&O) with a Bitcoin-backed liability policy, claiming to be a Bitcoin-only risk carrier, and could write traditional policies priced in US dollars. The company has a Class 2 insurance license for the Barbados Financial Services Commission.
Crypto and insurance crossovers usually involve wearing shoes to existing risk categories for loss and theft to cover hot and cold versions of custody of digital assets. Tabit’s approach is interesting as it explores ways in which businesses and individuals can take advantage of Bitcoin Holding without being involved in transactions or taking significant counterparty risks.
Tabit co-founder and CEO Stephen Stonberg said Bitcoin holders have been invited to donate their assets to a system of isolated spare cells managed using Fireblocks’ non-custodial technology. A good similarity from the insurance world is how accredited investors known as the “name” deploy their assets to Lloyd’s insurance syndicate in the London insurance market in London.
“With technology like Crypto, new underwriters may be needed, but the way insurance is completed is fundamentally the same as before,” Stonberg said in an interview. “We hold regulatory capital in Bitcoin. I think bringing new capital sources into the insurance industry and innovating on the balance sheet is an opportunity that others have not actually seen.”
