CURATED INSURTECH NEWS | What’s going on in the D-A-CH region?

What is new and what is hot in the InsurTech space? I have selected some interesting and groundbreaking news and information from the past few months from start-ups and incumbents in the insurance space. However, let’s start with FinTech!

Some FinTech allow a look behind the scenes

Some FinTech are offering insights into their holy of holies, namely their revenues¹. It is noteworthy that some start-ups already have double-digit sales revenues in the millions. It is worth to highlight the strong increase compared to the previous year at N26 and Elinvar. It seems that these start-ups are becoming “grown-ups”.

For those who would like to have a closer look at the German FinTech scene, I recommend to have a look at the major German FinTech clusters. FinLeap is one of such a cluster of a bunch of fresh FinTech start-ups. Another cluster is AllianzX, the digital investment unit of the Allianz Group, which is “investing in digital growth companies that are part of the ecosystems related to insurance”². AllianzX is invested in companies such as N26 and Lemonade. A full list of their investments is available here.

I have the impression that the FinTech scene in Austria is overlooked. Okay, the number of active fintech companies is still small compared with Germany and Switzerland. However, numerous local fintech startups have successfully expanded their business internationally³. In this context, I would like to highlight two of them:

• Finnest: provides a platform for established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to get access to unsecured loans using crowd investing. They show up with more than EUR 10 million in annual revenues. Not that surprising that they have been acquired in March 2019.
• Wikifolio: is a social trading platform that allows people to implement and publish their trading ideas and strategies in so-called “wikifolios”. The highlight is that under certain criteria these wikifolios become an investable structured product.

More crossover to come

As predicted earlier, we see more and more crossover between FinTech and Insurance. The largest insurer owned by the German Sparkassen, called “Versicherungskammer Bayern”, is investing into FinLeap⁴ – the large German company builder in the area of financial services. A major shareholder of FinLeap is no less than Ping An.

InsurTech Funding

The German startup Thinksurance raises EUR 13 million in its Series B funding⁵. Thinksurance is trying to modernize insurance distribution by offering a digital platform to interested sales partners.

New insurers gain traction

One Insurance – the green field insurer belonging to the Wefox Group – is expanding its business. They offer also motor insurance in Germany now. With currently around 200.000 policies in total, they are quite heavy growing, too. Next market is Switzerland and further markets will follow⁵.

If you like to learn more about One Insurance and their idea of a single policy, I recommend to have a closer look at my new video podcast Insurance in Motion. In the first episode, I had a ride with the CEO of One Insurance on an eTukTuk through Zurich.

One incumbent is really putting his foot down

Allianz not only showed up with a fully digital life insurance product in Germany but also with some bold moves.

• Move 1: Announcing to build their own financial platform called “ICONIC”⁷.
• Move 2: Forming the direct insurer Allianz Direct on European level⁸. After serving Germany and the Netherlands, Italy and Spain are to follow in 2020. Allianz Direct will be the product factory for all European direct (i.e. online) sales initiatives.

Not to mention the investments via AllianzX, of course.

Brokers are ready, are brokers really ready?

The majority of German insurance intermediaries are – according to a current survey⁹ – positive about the ongoing digitization of financial sales. 79 percent of them say that digital tools make their work easier. However, 91 percent say that personal consultation will not be replaced. Well, not sure if they’re not mistaken.

In any case, insurance intermediaries have understood that in order to stay in the pole position with retail clients, they have to upgrade themselves in terms of technology. Thus, more and more of them are investing. And from time to time they are even investing into entire startups – like the German broker pool Blau Direkt¹⁰ just did.

It is just a question of time until brokers run their own start-up programs, own tech ventures and so on.

So, what’s next?

As for brokers, we will see three camps:

1. Those, who will not survive the digital transformation.
2. Those, who will survive the digital transformation by the (technological) help of insurers and InsurTechs, but with the fact of being dependent.
3. And those, who will internally develop the necessary skills and tools, but with the fact of investing a decent share of their current revenues into the digital transformation.

The number of cooperation between insurers and start-ups will increase. However, cooperation doesn’t make an ecosystem at all. To get on the right track, an ecosystem strategy is essential.

All the mentioned sources are listed below. All thoughts and opinions are my own. All information without any liability. No claim to completeness.

Sources

¹ https://www.finanz-szene.de/fintech/von-n26-bis-finleap-diese-18-fintech-startups-zeigen-ihren-umsatz/

² taken from https://www.allianzx.com/

³ https://fintechnews.ch/fintechaustria/12-fintech-startups-from-austria-you-have-to-know/31261/

⁴ https://www.finanz-szene.de/fintech/groesster-deutscher-sparkassen-versicherer-steigt-bei-finleap-ein/

⁵ https://tech.eu/brief/german-startup-thinksurance-raises-e13-million-series-b-to-modernise-insurance-distribution/

⁶ https://m-faz-net.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/m.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/meine-finanzen/one-bietet-kuenftig-autoversicherungen-an-16424318.amp.html

⁷ https://www.gruenderszene.de/fintech/allianz-iconic

⁸ https://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/banken-versicherungen/versicherer-allianz-will-mit-neuem-online-versicherer-europa-aufmischen/25162948.html

⁹ https://www.dasinvestment.com/finanzvertrieb-4-von-5-vermittlern-sehen-digitalisierung-positiv

¹⁰ https://www.cash-online.de/berater/2019/blau-direkt-beteiligt-sich-an-insurtech/487975#