Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem are you solving?
Alex Hund: Onpier is a B2B2C platform for insurance-related value-added services. Via the Onpier platform, connected insurers can offer their customers relevant value-added services. These services meaningfully complement the core business of insurers – namely insurance products. Onpier enables value-added services and processes that didn’t exist before. This is because Onpier builds specialist and technical services on the platform to provide insurance customers with an immediate wow effect (practical benefit during interaction). The foundation of the Onpier platform is Service Dominated Architecture, a blueprint for platforms and ecosystems. This blueprint makes it possible to learn from every interaction and offer customers the next best use case based on data.
An example: After concluding motor vehicle insurance, Onpier enables the insurance customer to book a vehicle registration service digitally and easily. The customer clicks on a link provided by the insurer and is redirected to Onpier. In this process, Onpier does not appear as a visible brand itself. Rather, the booking flow is designed in the look and feel of the insurer – the customer thus associates the positive experience of the value-added service with their insurer. Onpier has an interface to the insurer, which allows data already recorded there to be pre-filled in the booking flow. With just a few clicks, the customer can then book the service with the connected service provider and pay via PayPal. After receiving the booking, the service provider takes care of the registration. Was the vehicle registered and is it an electric vehicle? Then the customer gets an offer to apply for the attractive THG subsidy straight afterwards – at Onpier, we call this interlinking and the delivery of meaningful use cases service chains that represent genuine added value.
Onpier preserves insurers’ resources
But why does it take Onpier to offer insurance customers value-added services? Of course, insurers could also connect service providers to existing IT systems themselves. However, a large proportion of insurers face the challenge that their own IT resources are limited. They would also have to negotiate all contracts with service providers individually. This is exactly where the Onpier platform comes in. Onpier takes on the complete service provider selection and integration – both technically and contractually – and provides the various services as so-called use cases on the platform. Connected insurers now only need to select the use cases that suit them and make them available to their customers. For example, for the THG subsidy use case, we have connected multiple service providers, so the insurer can also always offer their customers the best offer available at that time. Importantly: the insurer decides which customer gets which use case from which service provider.
Munich Startup: But that already exists!
Alex Hund: No, Onpier is unique in this form and as a solution for the insurance industry – current competitive analyses show us this too. On the one hand, the Onpier platform is characterised by a systematic development of resources (data, specialist and technical services, etc.) and enables them to be recombined and thus continuously launch innovative value-added services. Furthermore, Onpier offers particularly user-friendly and seamless integration into the existing systems of insurers. This means that insurers not only have minimal IT effort, but also that customers experience a uniform user experience in the look and feel of the respective insurer. By integrating the interface with insurers, existing customer data can be pre-filled, which significantly speeds up the process and substantially improves the user experience.
Onpier continuously expands its range of value-added services
Furthermore, Onpier offers not just isolated use cases, but links them to service chains that build on each other and provide customers with genuine added value – of course data-driven, so that customers are offered an appropriate service at the right time and place (the insurer naturally decides whether this happens).
Onpier continuously expands its range of value-added services, not just in the mobility sector, but also in other areas such as home and garden or health. This ensures that insurers always have access to the latest and most innovative services without having to invest in development themselves.
Munich Startup: What’s your founding story?
Alex Hund: Onpier is not a startup in the classical sense, but actually a spin-off. Onpier emerged from a Huk-Coburg project. Since 2022, we have had another shareholder in LVM Insurance. The Onpier platform was conceived from the start as a B2B2C platform for the insurance industry. Our shareholders are convinced that only together are insurers able to create a relevant platform for value-added services in order to compete against competitors from other industries.
In early 2022, things really took off for us as an independent company with the first use cases. Over the last two years we’ve grown significantly, so we now have over 50 colleagues in the team. A large part of our development team works remotely and distributed across the EU.
Advantages and disadvantages of a spin-off
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Alex Hund: When you start as a spin-off of the market leader in motor vehicle insurance, that naturally has advantages and disadvantages. From the start, we had a broad customer base for value-added services in the mobility sector, which really helped us. Of course, other insurers initially viewed it critically when competitors wanted to establish a cross-industry B2B2C platform. But over the last two years we’ve been able to resolve initial reservations among many market participants, so we now have five of the ten largest German insurers represented on the platform. For example, in the mobility sector we theoretically have access to over 25 million motor vehicle insurance customers.
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, and in five years?
Alex Hund: We’re currently working at full speed on new use cases for the most diverse areas, which will go live in the coming months. In particular, we’re working to optimise existing processes so we can provide use cases more quickly. We always have the experience of the end customer in mind and want to provide them with exactly the services that match their needs.
Munich offers an innovation-friendly environment
Munich Startup: How have you experienced the Munich startup location so far?
Alex Hund: Munich is a very good location for us as a startup in the insurance industry. On the one hand, we have access to a wealth of insurers, but on the other hand also to many service providers who could be suitable for our use cases. Furthermore, Munich offers access to highly qualified talent, a supportive network, and an innovation-friendly environment.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Alex Hund: Partly both. Since we focus on the niche market of value-added services in the context of insurance and have high innovation power, we partly meet the definition of a hidden champion. However, we still need to prove over the next few years that we can achieve stable success and continuous growth over time. So today we’re more of a shooting star within the insurance industry. But the fact that so many insurers have connected to us shows that we’re on the right track to really meeting the needs of the entire industry.
