The changing season in car insurance is in full swing.
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(Photo: imago images / blickwinkel)
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Frankfurt Hardly any other insurance start-up has caused as much discussion in the past few weeks as the digital insurance provider Getsafe. In late summer, the “Deutsche Startups” portal reported that the insurance company Swiss Re had invested in Getsafe and that the investment was the first part of a financing round of up to 50 million dollars. Since then, industry observers have been waiting for more specific information.
Getsafe itself has not yet commented on this – and merely refers to the fact that it communicated some time ago that the company intends to complete a financing round this year.
But now it is evident that the young Heidelberg company is working with Swiss Re intensified. The Swiss reinsurer is a cooperation partner in the new motor insurance that Getsafe will be launching on the market from November.
Motor vehicle insurance is one of the most competitive segments in Germany with just under 30 billion euros. For Getsafe, as one of the most important property insurances, it is an important milestone, said company founder Christian Wiens in an interview with the Handelsblatt.
The special feature: The new policy should offer low prices, even after an accident. Motor insurance premiums are usually cheap at the beginning and can increase in the following years. This causes many insured persons to change providers regularly.
Ambitious goals for the current changing season
The new Getsafe product is primarily intended as an offer to existing customers: “We know from surveys that motor vehicle insurance is the product that our existing customers want most at the moment,” explains Wiens. The product will not be represented on comparison portals where there is fierce competition for new customers.
“We are assuming that a double-digit percentage of customers will take out our new car insurance in this changing season,” says Wiens with conviction. Getsafe customers currently have a total of around 165,000 policies.
Originally, Wiens had communicated that it wanted to enter the life insurance business this year.
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The goals are ambitious in a sector with fierce competition. In addition to the big names in motor vehicle insurance, Huk Coburg and Allianz, Insurtech Friday, which is part of the Baloise Group, also vies for customers. The Swiss insurer presented its new strategy program until 2025 on Thursday. Accordingly, Friday should increase its sales fivefold to 150 million Swiss francs and become profitable in Germany.
In order to stand out from the competition, the Getsafe boss therefore attaches great importance to the technology that is in his product. It is intended to lay the foundation for the early detection and avoidance of accidents and dangerous driving behavior in the future with millions of anonymised smartphone data.
According to Wiens, the US insurtech Root is a pioneer in this area. In Europe, however, there is still no corresponding solution on the market.
Entry into life insurance business is delayed
The Getsafe boss had originally announced that he wanted to enter the life insurance business this year. Nothing will come of that now – in favor of expanding the property insurance business. The goal of wanting to become a multi-line insurer remains, however.
Last but not least, Vienna’s criticism of its way of communicating had to accept elsewhere. So the entire 15 million euros from the financing round concluded in 2019 did not come from the investors named.
“There was confusion with regard to the last financing round because we also included the proceeds from the sale of the brokerage business to Verivox, which we were not allowed to communicate separately,” admits Wiens. It is well known that start-ups often advertise themselves full-bodied. But transparency, as the Getsafe boss must admit here, should not be neglected.
US IPOs send signals to Europe
After several private financing rounds, some start-ups will at some point also ask themselves to go public. Another American Insurtech recently launched on the market with the Getsafe model Root. The US digital insurer Lemonade, which is also active in Germany, attracted attention with its IPO in July.
Vienna sees the IPOs of the American competition as “good signals” that European insurtechs are also likely to consider going public in the next three to five years. He finds such an option exciting for his company, although IPOs are a little more difficult to implement in this country than in the USA.
Julian Teicke, head of the Insurtech Wefox, also recently told Handelsblatt that he was aiming for his company to go public in the medium term. The founders hope that the combination of insurance and technology could result in an attractive package for the stock market.
More: The insurance start-up Wefox is adjusting its plans abroad.
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