The Company
Talanx is the third-largest German insurance group in terms of premium income and one of the largest in Europe. The Hannover-based company is active in more than 150 countries. The Talanx Group operates as a multi-brand provider with a focus on B2B insurance.
Talanx underwent particularly strong growth over the past decade and achieved premium income amounting to EUR 41.1 billion for the year 2020. Talanx operates extremely successfully as a multi-brand provider in highly promising sectors of the insurance and financial services industry. The group is led by Talanx AG which has been granted a reinsurance license at the beginning of 2019. The company is now no longer a pure holding company but instead also conducts business activities and acts as an intragroup reinsurer for primary insurance.
The largest shareholder of Talanx AG, with a stake of 79.0 percent, is HDI V.a.G., a mutual insurance company. The remaining 21 percent of shares are in the free float.
The group’s companies operate under a number of different brands. These include HDI, delivering insurance solutions to retail customers and industrial clients, Hannover Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurers, the bancassurance specialists Neue Leben Insurers, PB Insurers and TARGO Insurers as well as Ampega, a funds provider and asset manager.
In the industrial lines division HDI Global SE, which has specialized exclusively in this business, dedicates itself to the insurance needs of trade and industry in Germany and worldwide. HDI Global SE is a strong partner for companies in the trade, manufacturing and service sectors. They are a one-stop shop for innovative solutions geared to the client’s specific needs. HDI Global SE develops bespoke insurance concepts precisely tailored to the operating risks that companies face, no matter the type or size.
Comprehensive risk management designed to prevent losses and damage, forms just as much part of the company’s reliable service as professional and prompt claims management.
In the German retail division, small and mid-sized enterprises, as well as self-employed professionals, find the insurance protection that fits their requirements at HDI Versicherung AG. Featuring sector-oriented solutions and modular insurance packages, the company offers businesses in the commercial, service and craft sectors comprehensive and affordable insurance protection. HDI Versicherung AG also addresses retail customers with a need for more extensive consulting support, including in the area of private insurance coverage.
Companies of the HDI brand operate internationally especially in the core markets of Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
The group believes in a decentralized approach to running its business and its risk management operations. All subsidiaries must act entrepreneurial and are encouraged to innovate, within a given framework.
We are a decentralized organization as we truly believe in entrepreneurship. All our subsidiaries are given a lot of freedom under a clear framework to ensure transparency.
Jochen Friedemann Head of Operational Risk at HDI / Talanx
The Challenge
Prior to using Mitratech’s Alyne, HDI had a different platform in place and, although it performed sufficiently well among the risk management team, it was too complex and not user-friendly enough for different stakeholders across the organization, outside the area of risk management.
With a network as global as HDI’s, it was imperative for them to address and effectively solve the following:
- Proper communication across the organization, where all senior executives actively report risks to their subsidiaries as well as to the risk management unit.
- Develop fully efficient risk reporting and global risk register processes.
- Implement a solution with user-friendly design that enables a positive UX.
The main purpose of implementing a SaaS solution in the organization is to get people, outside the risk management team, to communicate potential risks to our unit as they encounter them. Therefore, we don’t need a tool for risk managers, we need a tool that allows us to involve the entire global organization.
Elena Warneke Risk Manager at HDI / Talanx
The Solution
Before selecting Mitratech’s Alyne, HDI set a dedicated team to conduct an extensive market research of several possible solutions and assessed them in detail before making a final decision.
HDI decided to implement Alyne because of its intuitive design, which makes it incredibly user-friendly and simplifies risk management processes within the organization.
It enabled HDI’s risk unit, as well as other key stakeholders, to easily understand complex data and gain actionable insights through powerful and efficient risk reporting and its global risk register.
Mitratech’s Alyne helped HDI achieve proper communication, generate greater awareness and drive risk culture across the organization with the ultimate goal of keeping HDI at the forefront of its risk management objectives with Alyne as its Mission Control.
What we like about Mitratech’s Alyne is that it is very user friendly and you don’t necessarily need to be a risk manager to properly use its many capabilities, it can easily be deployed across the whole organization. It takes away a lot of the pain that us risk managers usually have when trying to approach the rest of the organization with monstrous excel sheets or some very complicated tool that just ends up annoying people. It makes risk management so much easier.
Elena Warneke Risk Manager at HDI / Talanx
The Results
By implementing Mitratech’s Alyne within HDI, all challenges faced prior were mitigated and resolved far beyond expectations, creating an enormous advantage for HDI’s risk unit.
Following this success, other GRC functions, like information security and compliance management, will potentially be implementing Alyne in the next couple of months. At the moment, HDI is running a new project transforming their vendor risk management with Alyne.
“Mitratech’s Alyne definitely was a big improvement for us because it is much easier to use and it runs everywhere. People can use it from their mobile devices without any hassle and experience has taught us that if this isn’t possible people won’t use it at all. Nowadays, if you get an email that reads ‘please update your risks’ and you are not able to open the link from the device you are using at the precise moment you are reading the email, then you won’t do it. You might say ‘I’ll do it later’ but ‘later’ usually becomes ‘never’. It just makes communication so much easier.
Results are very positive from the rest of the organization, people are very happy and really appreciate the change. They really like the new tool but more importantly, they understand it; this is very positive for our risk management capabilities. People from other GRC functions approach us asking if they can start using Alyne as well. ‘Can we join?’ – they ask. This doesn’t happen very often to you as a risk manager.
Of course there are always some issues and room for improvement, you are never at 100%, but we are pretty close. We strongly believe this is the best solution out there and we openly tell our customers so.” — Jochen Friedemann Head of Operations at HDI / Talanx
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See it in Action HDI & Mitratech Join Forces in Latin America
In Latin America, HDI has operations in Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay with expansion plans coming in the foreseeable future. In this market, the key targets for insurance solutions are private households, small and medium sized enterprises. Particularly, the small and medium sized enterprises target is of high importance as it is these organizations that drive the economy in the region. Both individuals and organizations in this region, when compared to their equal German counterparts, are underinsured. This reality offers a big opportunity for insurance companies.
Following the success of implementing Mitratech’s Alyne in HDI’s risk management unit, an interesting opportunity was noticed by key decision makers inside the company.
If organizations, as big as HDI, with dedicated departments for all GRC functions find many daily activities quite bureaucratic and complicated, these pain points have got to be even higher among companies that do not have the capability to have entire departments full of qualified professionals dedicated to GRC. Given the fact that HDI was able to successfully mitigate all of its challenges by implementing Mitratech’s Alyne, then the value and possibilities of implementing this platform in small and medium sized enterprises in the Latin American market are far greater.
An exciting joint partnership between Mitratech and HDI was born, a place where technology and expertise combine. The outcome: a tailored insurance policy combined with a risk management solution that allows your organization to gain valuable risk insight. This common project was deployed across two Latin American countries: Mexico and Colombia, aiming to help small and medium sized organizations successfully manage their risks.
We received videos and emails from customers saying how much they liked the solution. This usually never happens. I must say I join them in this. I enjoy using Alyne and working with the Mitratech team.
Jochen Friedemann Head of Operational Risk at HDI / Talanx
The Results & Next Steps
Both organizations decided to carry out a test project consisting of implementing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of Alyne with the objective of quantitatively and qualitatively testing the market response to the product. After the execution of this joint project the feedback from customers was really good, Mitratech’s Alyne was successfully adopted and accepted among customers. The next level of implementation is now underway. HDI conducted a satisfaction survey among customers who participated in the project and this resulted in a satisfaction score of 88%.
Many customers shared videos and testimonials with their success stories.
Following this positive response, HDI is now assessing whether a similar opportunity exists in Europe. Some key aspects of Mitratech’s Alyne were highlighted, such as: its user friendliness, the superior user experience it provides, its library of predefined content, control sets and assessments; capabilities developed well above many other solutions in the market.
HDI’s main objective in the Latin American market is to help small and medium-sized companies to build long-lasting businesses and grow sustainably by offering not only insurance services, but also by creating an ecosystem that allows them to professionalize and overcome the challenges they may experience. Risk management is a major focus for these organizations.
As COO I strongly believe this solution helps small and medium sized businesses to optimize their risk management and operational capabilities.
Andres Perez Chief Operating Officer at HDI Colombia
Alyne - Enterprise Risk Managment 
