- Claims settlement within 48 hours thanks to artificial intelligen
- Entry into the animal health insurance market via ProSiebenSat1 Digital
- Dynamic growth planned for 2019: 100,000 new contracts and increase in portfolio premiums to EUR 100 million in tandem with further digitisation of the business
Advances in digitisation and customer experience
In fiscal 2018, the DFV continued to digitise processes and improve the customer experience. In addition to the online payment methods via Paypal and AmazonPay, digital assistants via Amazon Echo and the DFV-ChatBot are available to customers. Customer service also runs in digital mode via the DFV app and the DFV customer portal. DFV uses artificial intelligence for online claims settlement. This guarantees settlement of any claim within 48 hours.
Intensification of ProSiebenSat.1 Digital cooperation with new product
Since mid-April 2018, DFV has been successfully cooperating with ProSiebenSat.1 Digital. Under the MAXCARE brand, ProSiebenSat.1 Digital promotes health insurance products of DFV on the TV and online channels of the group with high coverage. From May 2019, DFV will bring animal health insurance on the market. Responsible for marketing is ProSiebenSat.1 Digital, which has developed a high-performance 360 degree marketing concept specifically for the new cooperation.
The market for animal health insurance in Germany is still in its infancy and is experiencing a rapid increase in demand. About 9.2 million dogs and 13.7 million cats live in Germany. No more than 17% of all dog owners and 6% of all cat owners have taken out animal health insurance. With its new product, DFV is therefore entering a promising market segment. In doing so, DFV is consistently implementing its growth strategy and demonstrating the high scalability of its business across various product lines. Being a fully digital insurance company, DFV can adapt its product range quickly and flexibly to the needs of the market as they unfold.
Outlook: Dynamic growth and further digitisation planned
DFV plans to expand its new business significantly in 2019. The proceeds of the IPO are earmarked to finance growth. Growth drivers are the online business, new products (e.g. animal health insurance) and cooperative ventures (e.g. with Henkel).
Digitisation is to be further advanced by optimising the automation of claims processing. In addition, the insurtech is developing its IT system from a linear system landscape to a cloud-based Neural System Analogy (CNS). The aim is to create a fully digitised and integrated system for overall portfolio management that can also be licensed to other insurers and partners.
With new business expected to amount to around 100,000 contracts, existing premiums are planned to rise to around EUR 100 million in 2019 and gross premiums to grow by around 20%. This includes the further optimisation of the existing portfolio through the planned run-off of the technical insurance (electronics) division. In addition to the current core business of supplementary health insurance, the property insurance segment is to be significantly expanded. DFV already began to renew and digitise existing property insurance policies in 2018.
Earnings in 2019 will be influenced by high growth investments for the further expansion of the contract portfolio, expenditure on further digitisation and the further development and expansion of new distribution channels. Distribution costs alone are expected to double to around EUR 30 million in 2019. DFV therefore expects a pre-tax loss of between EUR 9 million and EUR 11 million. Despite further dynamic growth, the breakeven point is expected to be reached in 2021.
"We've made a very good start to the new year. As of the end of March 2019, we already had 30% of the planned 100,000 new contracts on our books. Our declared goal beyond 2019 is to achieve an annual new business volume of around 100,000 contracts and thus continue our successful digital growth course in the medium term," says Dr. Stefan Knoll, CEO and founder of DFV.
To find out more about DFV's 2018 operating results, tale a look at "Deutsche Familienversicherung’s 2018 in Numbers"
About DFV Deutsche Familienversicherung AG
DFV Deutsche Familienversicherung AG (ISIN DE000A0KPM74) is a fast-growing insurtech company. As a digital insurance company, DFV covers the entire value chain with its own products. The aim of the company is to offer insurance products that people really need and understand immediately ("Simple & Sensible"). DFV offers its customers award-winning supplementary health insurance (dental, health and long-term care insurance) as well as accident and property insurance policies. Based on its ultra-modern and scalable IT system developed in-house, the company is setting new standards in the insurance industry with consistently digital product designs and the option of taking out policies via digital language assistants.
www.deutsche-familienversicherung.de