Finlex Austria celebrates its 1st birthday

Exactly one year ago, in May 2022, the Finlex platform went live in Austria. It is now an integral part of the Austrian industrial insurance sector and already has over 160 Austrian platform users in Cyber and D&O insurance.  

Big plans for Austria
A lot has happened in the first 365 days. The team led by Dr. Peter Loisel has grown with additional experts, as has the insurer panel on the Finlex platform, and it is constantly expanding: UNIQA is now also the first Austrian insurance company involved in D&O insurance since the beginning of May. In addition, the Fast Lane model for Cyber insurance was launched in mid-April on the Austrian market. The Fast Lane model is characterized by a digital, lean and fast process covering everything from assessing risk to issuing policy and ensures total transparency of process handling. Companies with revenues of up to EUR 50 million can immediately choose from several results based on just a few basic pieces of information. Then, depending on their choice, they only need to meet a few minimum IT security requirements for the policy to be issued directly online. The Finlex Cyber Fast Lane has tapped into market trends and led to a remarkable increase in traffic on the German and Austrian platforms last month alone. 

Finlex combines expert knowledge with the latest technology 

But Finlex is more than just a platform. As the name FINancial Lines EXperts already shows, Finlex stands for outstanding knowledge in the area of Financial Lines thanks to its own experts. The approximately 130 employees, headquartered in Frankfurt and based at the Barcelona, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Essen, Paris and Vienna locations, support the Austrian brokers with a high level of specialist expertise. The Finlex experts are also in demand at well-known industry events and always present exciting specialist contributions or take part in panel discussions at conferences or symposiums. In addition to the platform and business teams, the Finlex family includes numerous technical experts from the Cyber, Management Liability and Claims areas. Within the Cyber division, Julia Sousa is responsible for the Broking Team and Dennis Wrana for the Product Management Team, supported by Cyber pioneers, Sabine Sander and Dr Sven Erichsen. In the Management Liability division, Dr Stephanie Belei is responsible for the Broking Team and Beata Drenker is responsible for Product Management Liability & Legal Protection. Dr Marcel Straub and his team are responsible for the Claims and Legal divisions. 

Current premium income on the Finlex platform is over EUR 100 million and thus exceeds the premium income in D&O and Cyber in the entire Austrian market. Finlex is now gradually expanding its internationalisation strategy. The vision is to be Europe’s leading platform in the commercial and industrial business with a focus on Financial Lines. The aim is to offer broker and insurance partners as great a benefit as possible through digital and technical support. This can also make a significant contribution to growth and quality improvement in the D&O, Cyber and other product sectors. 

Bonjour la France! 

After Germany, France is the second largest market in Europe in terms of premium income in financial sectors (EUR 500 million of premium in D&O and EUR 250 million in Cyber). Finlex will start its activities in France in June 2023 with the team led by Emmanuelle Criado for a platform-based marketplace with three Cyber offerings and three D&O offerings in partnership with five insurers and is in the process of building up its network of cooperative agreements with brokers. By the end of 2023, Finlex will have more than ten Cyber and ten D&O offerings in France, contributing to the goal of becoming THE digital marketplace for special insurance in Europe.