Insurtech Insights Interviews: Dr. Christian Macht, CEO – ELEMENT
Insurtech Insights Interviews: Dr. Christian Macht, CEO – ELEMENT

Q: What problems does the business look to solve & what makes ELEMENT best place to solve these industry issues?

A: The insurance industry is currently facing digital reality – evolution and disruption are there. It poses challenges to incumbents with legacy systems and large balance sheets to keep up the speed of innovation as well as intermediaries to respond to changing customer needs.
At ELEMENT, we act as an enabler to the insurance ecosystem: we partner with any type of company with customer ownership so they can offer tailored insurance products to their customers. As a fully licensed insurer by BaFin, we can cover the entire insurance value chain, which allows us to offer different collaboration routes. Our tech platform allows us to create customisable insurance products in a short period of time and integrate them into partners’ ecosystems in a seamless manner. In other words, our solutions enable companies to keep pace with digitalisation in the insurance industry.

Q: Why does the industry require fully digital insurance solutions?

A: Both demand and supply drive insurers to provide fully digital insurance solutions.

From the supply side: the way products and services are delivered is changing. The digitalisation affects product creation and results in faster processing time. The automation and direct-to-customer distribution reduce costs and can increase customer retention. The combining of digital technology and data helps to better understand consumers and therefore improves our offerings.

From the demand side: consumers want simplicity and convenience – digital distribution allows to do it all in one-click. The pandemic has accelerated the consumers’ “level of comfort” with digital solutions: online purchasing, increased interest in usage-based products and willingness to share data for personalised offers. The personalisation makes it possible to “unbundle” insurance packages, create usage-based premiums and automating advisory processes. Key importance also became the accessibility: 24/7 purchase possibility and providing all the relevant information directly to the customer.

Q: What specific technologies are most important for the industry at this point in time?

A: Automated underwriting by leveraging AI: insurers can gain efficiency by automating some parts of the underwriting process. Telematics improves the insurer-consumer relationship by providing more fair and customized insurance. For motor insurers, it is a great source of data for better risk assessment. ELEMENT uses APIs to ensure seamless integration with our partners to accelerate data exchange. Finally Cloud – being the first fully cloud-based insurer in Europe, we see the potential in it for the insurance industry. It allows us to be scale quickly and stay flexible.

Q: What specific technologies are you working on that foresee potential future industry challenges?

A: ELEMENT is focusing on two things. First, the tech platform part. Our technological infrastructure is based on microservices, meaning that we can easily provide tailor-made solutions to our partners. It is facilitated by white-label frontends, automated document creation, product, and pricing services – all serving purposes for our partners.
Second, the data analytics capabilities. Exclusive access to partner data, proprietary pricing engine and data science experts allows for superior underwriting models. It also helps us to support our partners to understand their customers better.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself, what makes you tick day to day? Can you offer us a little insight into your daily habits that make you a successful CEO?

A: I have been the CEO of ELEMENT Insurance AG for four years and have accompanied the company since its foundation. ELEMENT’s claim is to adapt flexibly to the needs of the market and our partners and to offer solutions when the need has not yet been recognized. In such a dynamic environment, routine processes and daily habits are not conducive.

My credo is: work hard, be there for your teams, take the blame if things didn’t work. It is all about trust and support. I am convinced that personal and professional development is only possible if there is an open culture of mistakes. Mistakes are part of the game, they happen to everyone, but we must learn from them. At ELEMENT we talk openly about mistakes as an opportunity to find solutions together.

Everyone brings his or her own skills and experience to the table, which I and we see as an opportunity to achieve good, creative, and rethought results. I see myself as a support for our employees, I encourage them and accompany their development. Trust is a key element for me at ELEMENT. In conclusion, I enable growth by believing in the individual abilities and I try to always have an open door for each and everyone.

Source: Yahoo Finance

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