Together with high-ranking representatives of 19 member companies, we made the trip to Tel Aviv to visit our partner SOSA FinTLV. The goal was to explore the Israeli startup ecosystem and discuss trends and developments with experts and startups. Patrick Prüss, Head of Product Management Liability/Casualty & Digital Officer at the Gothaer Insurance, shares his personal impressions of the trip with us in this blog post.
Israel - What is the first thing people associate with this small country, which is barely the size of Hesse? For most people, it's probably a country with one of the liveliest and most prosperous startup landscapes beyond Silicon Valley. That's how I felt, but I was proven wrong. But how is it that Tel Aviv, of all places, is one of the startup capitals of the world? For one thing, Israel is a small country with a population of only 8 million. Unlike U.S. startups, which have a large market at their disposal within their own national borders, Israel's high-tech incubators rely on thinking beyond their customers back home from the very first second. Furthermore, most Israelis serve in the army, which is considered highly innovative and a global leader in high-tech and cybersecurity. As such, the Israeli army's IT and cyber units - especially the 8200 intelligence unit - provide an excellent foundation for launching innovative startups. And many of the innovative minds are taking advantage of this opportunity!
But what does all this have to do with our insurance industry, which is considered dusty in tranquil Germany, some are asking...
But the industry in Germany is not as dusty as one assumes from the outside. Something is happening in Germany, as the existence and success of InsurLab Germany underscores. So it came about that we set out together - a motley bunch of 18 digitalization experts, innovation managers and digital transformation specialists in the business lines of various InsurLab Germany member companies. What we have in common is that we all recognized the potential of digitalization and wanted to set off together to the country we were unfamiliar with in order to get to know new companies for projects. Insurlab Germany made this trip possible for us in cooperation with the Tel Aviv-based Startup Hub SOSA FinTLV, a strong partner of the initiative.
When you take a trip...
After a 4 hour flight and some security checks, we set foot on Israeli soil. SOSA FinTLV had not promised us too much: already on the first day we got to know seven great startups, discussed their solutions as well as potentials and applications at the highest level. "Spooky", but technically very mature seemed to me the Chatbot from vocathat works on the basis of artificial intelligence. It also scared me a bit how the bot could call customers and eerily make entire appointment setting and collection calls, but it was no less fascinating.
Or also Heat is not to be scoffed at. A startup that uses "document intelligence" to search documents for content. For our project to build a digital ecosystem around insurance via photo, this was a most welcome shortcut.
What will also be exciting for my colleagues from the central digitization team is SecuPi that provide an overlay for cybersecurity of multiple devices (mobiles, computers, etc.). The pace and especially the quality of the startups' pitches was breathtaking and exceeded my expectations!
This was followed in the evening by a roundtable discussion on the innovative capacity of German companies and how this could be increased. An exciting discussion that led perfectly into the evening. Unfortunately, I was not able to take advantage of Tel Aviv's evening scene, which is known as a party city, because the next day it started non-stop for me with a provider of three-dimensional city shots and another 4 startups followed.
The second day in Tel Aviv
The quality of the solutions on the second day was also excellent. Outstanding on the second day from my point of view were Mosaics. As a provider of an interface with an integrated bot solution, they offer huge potential for insurers with many legacy issues. In our case, they would be ideal to marry our modern but complex system with a speedboat solution without having to invest huge amounts of money. Managing Director of InsurLab Germany, Sebastian Pitzler, and the Managing Director of SOSA FinTLV, Gil Arazi, others and also I still paid great tribute during the event for two valuable InsurTech days and the chance to directly engage the Israeli companies for projects at home. The true value of these contacts will only be revealed in the coming months, but no one can take away the learning experience.
A worthy conclusion
For some, the departure began early. But the rest of us still had some time to explore the city and take a trip to Jerusalem the next day - a MUST if you have already made the trip to Israel. For the rest of us, SOSA had organized a guide who memorably integrated stories of humanist, Jewish and Christian concepts and traditions into a tour through time. (At this point, I was almost threatened with "information overload" by the impressions of the two days, the guide's explanations bordering on wisdom, and the incomprehensible atmosphere - both in Jerusalem and at SOSA FinTLV in Tel Aviv).
The trip helped us German insurers a lot to get closer to Israeli startups and all participating members can now take the chance to start new projects or further develop newly made acquaintances from Monday on.
"And the safety?", some are probably wondering. To this I can only say the following: First, I always felt safe and second, the greatest danger of my participation was probably tendinitis from taking notes so much (attached is an impression).
About the author: Patrick Prüss is Head of Product Management Liability/Casualty at Gothaer Allgemeine and, as Digital Officer, is responsible for the digital transformation towards a digital service and risk partner.