Helvetia is in a good position and making very good progress with its helvetia 20.20 strategy

At today's Capital Markets Day, Helvetia shows its situation and the challenges facing some of its business areas. In addition, the company shares the latest news on the implementation of its strategy helvetia 20.20. "Helvetia is in excellent shape and has a strong platform on which to further its development. We have already made very good progress with the implementation of our helvetia 20.20 strategy. Our non-life business consistently achieves very good technical results. Moreover, our life business is in the best of health despite the challenging low interest rate environment. We have redesigned the traditional 'classical' life insurance products in recent years and successfully adapted them to the market environment, while more emphasis has been placed on capital-light offers. Moreover, Helvetia’s business is well diversified through its segments Switzerland, Europe and Specialty Markets. We are also working on more growth initiatives in Europe and in the Specialty Markets. Ultimately, we want to exploit digitalisation to further our development through a focused and structured approach", says Philipp Gmür, CEO of Helvetia Group, referring to Capital Markets Day.

Transforming the current business model to reflect the digital world and tapping into new sources of income
The strong position of the individual segments enables Helvetia to use digitalisation as an opportunity. The strategy helvetia 20.20, which was launched about a year ago, offers a structured and focused approach to implementing digitalisation. Helvetia is pursuing two strategic priorities to be fit for the future. The current insurance business will be made more efficient and optimised by focusing on investment in automation, process streamlining and an improved customer experience. Helvetia will, for example, prioritise churn management, cross-/up-selling through data analytics, digital customer advice and the extension of standard contracts through SMS chatbot.

The second priority is to tap into new earnings sources through new business models, such as the successful Swiss direct insurer smile.direct or the majority share acquired in the mortgage intermediary MoneyPark in December 2016. Helvetia also aims to access new earnings sources by building up eco systems. The "Home" eco system is the first stage in this strategy, providing Helvetia with an initial strong anchor through MoneyPark. This eco system will cover all the customer’s home-related requirements. The companies participating in the network will profit from gaining access to new customers, while the customers themselves will benefit from a continuous and excellent customer journey. This development is supported by the Helvetia Venture Fund and Helvetia Innovation Lab at the Institute for Technology Management of the University of St.Gallen, which specialises in researching new business models for the insurance industry.

Unchanged financial targets
Philipp Gmür summarises his own ambitions as follows: "Helvetia has been a reliable partner for almost 160 years and wants to remain as such in the future. We will create the platform to do that through our helvetia 20.20 strategy: Helvetia is becoming more agile, innovative and customer-centric. We are also keen to exploit the opportunities offered by digitalisation. That will enable us to add value for customers, employees and shareholders. We will measure the success of the strategy implementation through ambitious financial targets, which remain unchanged."