Meet the insurtech: CHAMPtitles

Putting together his experiences on Wall Street and in automotive lending, CHAMPtitles founder and CEO Shane Bigelow saw what blockchain could do for tracking assets. He put that observation into the insurtech company, which manages automotive titles digitally so insurers can quickly process changes to a title in the event of a total loss.

Shane Bigelow, founder and CEO of CHAMPtitles.

Jason Miller

“If you’re using blockchain to track asset provenance, you can do a lot of good things that aren’t easy to do in a paper-based world,” Bigelow said. “You can make sure you have a system of record that has an accurate provenance of an asset. You can enable lenders and insurance carriers to validate that it’s the asset they were lending money on or insuring.”

CHAMPtitles sells its digital solution to state governments replacing aging auto title and registration systems, which are mostly paper-based. A request to change a title has to be compared to the government agency’s title on file. Any discrepancies have to be checked out and corrected.

Recently, West Virginia signed on after passing a bill to speed up title processing. It had taken about 45 days to process a title change in the state. CHAMPtitles now does the change in the same day.

“Getting a title from the state where an accident occurred is not always expeditious,” Bigelow said. “Some states have five, six or eight-week backlogs. When that backlog occurs, the car then sits in a salvage yard, leaking fluids, rusting and causing all sorts of environmental issues. It’s also causing a drag on the balance sheet of a carrier because they’ve paid out a claim and they need to sell the car to get any money back. They can’t do it unless they have the title in their name.”

The need to speed up transfers of titles is also increasing because of changes in the automotive market. Cars are more likely to be declared total losses because on-board computer systems and technology are more easily damaged in accidents – and more expensive to fix, Bigelow noted. This is driving up the numbers of total losses. Consumers turn over leased vehicles faster as well. 

“The average lease is now turning over in 12 to 14 months, before peak depreciation time,” he said. “The car depreciates the most on the first day off the lot, but it’s still depreciating pretty aggressively in the first 18 months. If you’re turning in a car in those first 18 months, and the dealer is waiting 30 to 60 days to get your title, the depreciation expense is high.”

For insurers, as well as car makers and car dealers, faster processing of title transfers increases customer loyalty. “A digital insurer carrier’s biggest point for losing customers is when there’s a total loss,” Bigelow said. “Because everybody’s upset. Nobody’s happy. If I can provide the policyholder with a better experience at the end of the life of their vehicle, they’re not going to leave that carrier.”