iptiQ: Growth in every sense of the word

The year 2018 was one marked by growth in every sense of the word for iptiQ. That's because Life Capital's one-stop digital insurance shop is expanding rapidly – not only in terms of policy count, but also in terms of regional presence, employees and number of distribution partners.

iptiQ's average weekly policy sale count has seen swift growth over the past year, from 1133 per week in 2017 to 2037 per week in 2018. This corresponds to an increase in gross written premiums from USD 60 million to USD 82 million year-on-year. These numbers appear even more impressive when viewed over a two-year scale – in 2016 we were selling only 545 policies per week on average, which means that we have quintupled our sales volume over the past 48 months.

Our geographic presence is also widening. In 2018, we opened life and health operations in Australia and New Zealand, while in Europe we expanded our operations to France and also celebrated being the first foreign insurer to successfully enter the Dutch healthcare market. In total, we've established 5 operating companies in 8 countries over the past five years and developed a robust primary talent pool of nearly 300 FTE's.

Finally, our number of distribution partners continues to grow, almost quadrupling from 5 to 19 over the past two years.

To minimize the challenges that fast-growing start-up businesses tend to face, we have adopted an agile working culture and seek to attract established partners with immediate scale and proven track records in order to keep our growth sustainable over the longer-term.

In conclusion, 2018 was a year to be proud of. We are now protecting almost 400,000 families worldwide with our award-winning insurance products built on market-leading platforms. But this is no time to rest on our laurels – indeed, our ambitions for 2019 and beyond are very high, and we have the added challenge of launching our new Property and Casualty unit. Our goal is to provide affordable, easy-to-understand insurance products that help close the protection gap and make the world more resilient. We believe that the combination of competitive products, swift partner onboarding and a seamless, streamlined consumer journey will be the foundation for our future success.