claimBuddy

Why did you found your start-up, what problem are you addressing and how are you solving it?

The insurance industry is facing major challenges in the course of digitalization. Currently, claims for policyholders are mainly submitted via paper or PDF forms and possibly online input masks, which are complex and difficult to understand.

Our interactive chatbot asks only the most necessary questions to record the claim quickly and clearly. The policyholder can upload photos of the damage or relevant documents. We then assess the damage with the help of artificial intelligence (especially image recognition). Once the monetary value has been successfully assessed, the policyholder receives a payout proposal with the aim of settling the claim immediately.

In addition to image recognition, we use other technologies such as location determination (Google Maps) and the analysis of weather data to check the plausibility of the claim. We can generate the data in various output formats such as PDF, XML, BiPro as an e-mail attachment and send it to the insurer or integrate our solution into the company's own insurance software.

How did you come up with the idea of founding your start-up?

Our CEO Amin had a claim that was quite complex to report and then took several weeks to settle. He was of the opinion that this process should be much faster thanks to digitalization.

What is special about your business model, what do you do differently?

Both policyholders and insurance companies benefit from using claimBuddy. The policyholder benefits from time savings of up to 99 percent. With claimBuddy, it is possible to report and fully document the claim within a few minutes and to settle the claim. Compared to the standard process, further correspondence and inquiries about missing documents are no longer necessary. Today, these claims must be submitted by the agent or an employee by e-mail. As a result, the policyholder receives their money faster and their satisfaction increases.

Insurance companies save costs by automating processes. Experience has shown that automated claims reporting and settlement saves up to 20-30 minutes per claim. These time savings can be scaled to the corresponding claim amounts. In addition, our solution is easily scalable to insurers' requirements for large events that cause many claims at once.

What was the most valuable piece of advice someone gave you during your start-up phase?

In the very early stages, our investor told us to always trust our guts before making difficult decisions. That was pretty good advice and he is now our investor.

What has been your biggest success so far?

We were able to win a German insurance company from Hanover as our first customer.

What is the next challenge for you?

Following our successful entry into the German market, we are planning to expand into the European market, starting with the German-speaking countries of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Expansion is planned for 2020 at the earliest.

Where did you meet?

Amin and Christoph met at the Institute for Risk and Insurance at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Amin was a working student and responsible for IT support at the institute and Christoph was a researcher. We met our third team member, Christian, at a lean startup competition in Hanover at the end of 2016. All in all, our team sees the diversity of our skills and abilities as a great opportunity to establish the long-term success of claimBuddy.

Where do you see your startup in 3 years?

claimBuddy will be very well known in Europe and will be used by 5-10 percent of insurance companies.

Do you have an office cat/dog/turtle...?

Our co-founder Christoph has a cute little dog called Joey. He is an integral part of our team, responsible for spreading a good mood in the office and also for us regularly getting out of the office to take him for a walk.

If an investor gave you 500,000 euros, what would you do with the money?

The 500,000 euros will be used to fund product development and improve our AI, in particular the claims review mechanism and the rating algorithm, to make claimBuddy more beneficial and convenient for policyholders and companies.