News from the InsurTech Scene

The Swiss insurance group Baloise is on an investment course. The company plans to spend CHF 50 million by 2021 on investments in about ten start-ups, the investment in the Berlin-based start-up omni:us represents the insurance group's third investment within a year. omni:us specializes in document mapping and provides programs that recognize documents and automatically extract data, even for handwritten texts. Baloise sees omni:us as a promising financial investment, as the group says, as the technology is meeting with great interest from numerous insurers on the one hand and has potential for process optimisation within its own group on the other. A pilot project for testing the software will soon be carried out at Baloise in Luxembourg.

Neodigital, a digital insurer from Neukirchen, since its foundation by former employees of the Baden-Badener, with the help of the Düsseldorf broker Schneider Golling, has been relying on the cooperation with independent sales partners in order to sell its insurance products in private liability, pet owner liability, household contents and accident insurance. In addition, sales partners should also be able to develop their own insurance solutions. Now, after only eight months, the company has received its BaFin license as an insurer - an important step towards the start of business operations.

Allianz X is growing. Following its USD 160 million stake in the digital bank N26, Munich has this time contemplate the acquisition of the Indonesian ridesharing service GO-JEK. The USD 35 million investment is the fourth investment by the Group's investment unit within this year and also the first ever investment in a Southeast Asian company. GO-JEK, based in Jakarta, has developed since its foundation in 2010 into an on-demand platform with its own app in the transport sector and offers services in the areas of transport, logistics, e-payment and food deliveries, among others. The company currently operates in more than 50 cities in Indonesia (a geographic expansion of the business model is already planned) and has more than 400,000 participating drivers.

The international accelerator program "InsurTech Europe powered by Plug and Play" will in future have a strong new anchor partner in the Versicherungskammer Bayern. According to its own statements, the Group hopes to gain access to a global start-up network that focuses primarily on accelerator programs in Munich, Singapore, Tokyo and the Sillicon Valley.

13 of the 39 founding companies of the Blockchain Initiative B3i have agreed to found their own insurance provider on a Blockchain basis, B3i Services AG based in Zurich. In addition to initial investments, the founding members have already taken initial steps in the form of transferring part of their intellectual property to the start-up company. The next step is to raise additional funds from additional investors.

InsurTech Kasko, which primarily provides IT solutions for insurance companies, supplies the IT platform for the new heavy rain policy of Barmenia in cooperation with Swiss Re. The aim of the cooperation between the insurer and the reinsurer is to offer a policy that can be concluded separately and throughout Germany and covers both household and home damage. In contrast to comparable policies, which are often only available as supplements to household contents or homeowners' insurance, the new insurance product should be individually lockable, but the insured amounts remain relatively low. The new heavy rain policy is not the first cooperation between these companies - they also offer solutions for natural hazard losses.

Allianz is participating in the financing round of Digitalbank N26 via its digital investment unit Allianz X with a total of approximately USD 160 m. The insurance company already has a stake in the company, which was founded in 2015 via the assistance provider Allianz Partners. Apart from IPOs, the financing round is the largest equity financing in the German FinTech sector to date. In addition to Allianz X, the lead investor is the Chinese group Tencent. To date, N26 has collected a total of USD 215 million.

Berlin-based start-up Perseus Technologies GmbH and Signal Iduna have joined forces to launch a three-part IT protection shield for commercial customers, which includes measures in the areas of IT security, prevention and cyber insurance protection in particular and covers damage from information security breaches, such as data theft. In addition, customers affected by anomalies in the IT landscape can contact a 24-hour hotline, which offers ad-hoc help in the event of a claim. If necessary, experts, such as cyber forensics experts, also offer on-site assistance.

The "InsurTech Hub Munich e.V.", founded in Munich in 2017, has joined the international network "Global InsurTech Alliance". The Bavarian Insurtech forge sponsored by well-known German insurance companies, including Allianz, Arag, Munich Re and HUK-Coburg, hopes that by joining the worldwide network founded in January 2018, domestic InsurTechs will be able to network more closely with partners around the world. "New solutions should no longer be created locally in the industry, but globally," explained Tom Van den Brulle, Chairman of the InsurTech Hub Munich.

The digital property and casualty insurer Coya, founded in 2016, has joined its Supervisory Board with the GDV President Dr. Wolfgang Weiler and Dr. Peter Hagen. Weiler has extensive experience in the insurance industry. Until July 2017 he was CEO of the HUK-Coburg Group. Hagen, who will become Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Coya AG, most recently held the position of CEO of the Vienna Insurance Group. Coya AG, which focuses on convenience, transpanrenz and the latest technology in its business model, is thus taking a further step towards its corporate goal of becoming Europe's leading digital insurance company in the property sector.