Data trusts are the new black.

I chaired a session at the ASFA Spotlight on Insurance last week. Real live people. In a room. Talking about insurance… Except mostly we were talking about data. The ‘big idea’ of the day was data trusts. Turns out, Wattletree is a data trust. We just thought sharing data to get better outcomes was a good idea!

What the *bleep* is a data trust?

A data trust is a legal structure that provides independent stewardship of data. By sharing data across an industry (in this case financial services) the owners of the data can make better product, marketing and governance decisions than if they only had use of their own data.

Of course, access and privacy have to be carefully managed. That’s one of the reasons why Wattletree provides reporting at the ‘population’ or cohort level, rather than at the individual level.

There was much discussion at the ASFA Insurance Day around other uses for data trusts, including better understanding claims patterns, fraud detection, member outcomes, product design and more.

Then of course there was further discussion about how could this possibly happen, and who could possibly build it. You won’t be surprised to hear that I had to stop myself from leaping up and shouting ‘WE HAVE THE SOLUTION!’ about 55 times during the day.

There are challenges of course. I mean, check out this graph:

Financial services businesses are WAY off the pace when it comes to sharing data. There’s a bunch of reasons of course, but none of them are insurmountable. And the opportunities are immense.

Let’s talk

If there’s a burning DDO question that no-one seems to have a good answer to, or you just need to understand how Wattletree works in more detail, please get in touch. I invite you to shoot through your Q’s using the below form or alternatively you can call me on 0417 970 818. There’s no such thing as a silly question*

*OK, we all know that’s rubbish but you know what I mean!

Cheers, Sarah

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