Insurtech Helden.de wants to offer pet insurance via a platform.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf When you click through the Helden.de website, you could almost think you’ve landed on a social network. There are three hippie-style young adults grinning for the camera, with a couple cooking dinner next to them, and just below that is a photo of a horse and its owner. Only this is not about likes or comments, but about insurance.
The Hamburg Insurtech of the founder Jan Schmidt wants to make insurance simpler and, above all, more transparent. Because many consumers are unsettled by the ever-increasing range of insurances – especially online.
More than every third person complains that the procedure for taking out online insurance is too complicated. This is shown by a study carried out on behalf of Bitkom. “Online customers are now used to different standards in terms of user-friendliness from shops and streaming providers,” explains the industry association of the information and telecommunications industry.
The Helden.de platform recognized this problem seven years ago. “We found that the gap between e-commerce and insurance was and still is extremely large,” says founder Schmidt, who and his management team hold just under 30 percent of the shares. With his start-up, the business informatics graduate wants to make insurance companies more user-friendly.
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Although his company is still small, it employs around 50 people and has 90,000 customers. Nevertheless, well-known investors already believe in the company. Most recently, the investment company of the Tchibo family joined the young company. Together with another shareholder, she owns just over 50 percent of the shares.
Takeover of Tierdirekt should bring growth
The start-up wants to turn over around ten million euros in this financial year, but – like most insurtechs – it is not yet profitable. “We are counting on strong growth,” says Schmidt. That’s why he and his company recently bought the “Tierdirekt” start-up, which specializes in animal insurance. Schmidt does not want to reveal how much money the Hamburgers paid for the takeover.
With the takeover, Helden.de is now also getting Munich Re on board, which helped set up Tierdirekt and intends to continue working with the company. Tierdirekt will initially remain its own brand, but in the medium term the animal insurance plans will also be sold via Helden.de.
The product repertoire of the provider has so far mainly included the classics: for example liability and household insurance or professional and office insurance. But customers can also take out drone and bicycle insurance on the platform.
Helden.de itself does not have an insurance license, but acts as an underwriting agent. In the insurance industry, these are primarily intermediaries who take out insurance, calculate risks and settle claims on behalf of their partners. Here, Helden.de works together with NV-Versicherungen and the English company Hiscox.
If a customer takes out insurance with the start-up, they collect a brokerage fee. In addition, a profit-sharing agreement was negotiated with its partners. “That’s something special and not common in the industry,” reports CFO Dirk Weipert.
Germans spend 5.5 billion euros on pets
Founder Schmidt has high hopes for the animal insurance business. In the first year of Corona alone, the number of pet owners increased by a million. There are an estimated 35 million pet owners in Germany.
So far, only a few have taken out suitable animal owner liability insurance. According to GHV Versicherung, for example, only a third of dogs in Germany were insured last year. However, figures from the Industry Association for Pet Supplies show that there is a fundamental willingness to dig deep into their pockets: In 2020, Germans spent around 5.5 billion euros on their pets.
Helden.de is by no means the only company that wants to make the insurance market easier for customers. The start-up is taking on some much larger competitors, for example Wefox in Germany, which recently raised 650 million euros in a financing round. There are also many comparison portals where customers can also take out insurance.
Helden.de does not cooperate with comparison portals such as Check24. The sales of the insurance run exclusively on their own website, says Schmidt. “At the end of the day, a lot of money goes to these comparison portals, which the customer then doesn’t have,” says the 31-year-old, explaining the strategy.
However, when comparing it with other portals, it is noticeable that Helden.de does not always offer the cheapest insurance on the market. “We try to present the best possible product from the entire market in a transparent manner. That may not always be the cheapest, but it is the most comprehensive,” says Schmidt.
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