Have you ever found yourself feeling lost when trying to gain an overview of your personal financial situation? The relevant information is often hard to come by. Whether applying for a mortgage, understanding your pension benefits, figuring out how your family can be taken care of in case of an accident or death: vlot provides the answers to these questions in a matter of only a few minutes …
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Intuitively navigating the jungle of social security, state and employee benefits
vlot is a Zurich based InsurTech that helps families and individuals rapidly and intuitively understand the financial impact of death, disability, and the lack of adequate retirement funds. By aggregating social security benefits, employer benefits as well as relevant personal data, the vlot mobile-first and desktop solution transparently displays a potential household income and savings gap. In collaboration with (re-)insurers, pension funds and banks, vlot’s API based architecture allows for seamless integration of white label product offerings as well as underwriting engines for smooth end-to-end digital processes. The vlot multi-channel approach offers a variety of formats: whether from straight through D2C (Direct-2-Consumer), to using a vlot mobile application as an auxiliary tool for physical advisory, or in a worksite context ranging from SMEs to large corporates and pension funds or even in a bancassurance and mortgage advisory context. The vlot core analytics engine and workflow can easily be configured to serve a variety of (distribution) channel setups and client needs. A comprehensive data and business intelligence suite complete the offering and allows for in-depth insights into all forms of interaction along the digital customer journey.
Industry recognition led to the first bold strategic shift
vlot launched its first live solution in February 2019 – a B2C proposition under the vlot brand for private customers in the Swiss market. This fully digital end-to-end life insurance customer journey was a successful technical proof of concept, and still lives on today as part of vlot’s DNA. Powered by the vlot gap calculation engine and focusing on risk insurance, this configuration combined innovative features such as a dynamic coverage adjustment based on specific life events, online underwriting as well as digital invoicing and payments. Looking back today, some of these features were maybe even too advanced for the Swiss market at the time …
The large interest generated by this first B2C solution resulted in widespread recognition within the Swiss (5 InsurTech startups to watch in 2020 by Venturelab) and the European InsurTech community. Invitations to “Show & Tell” presentations at Digital Insurance Agenda (DIA) Amsterdam 2018 (editorial) and DIA Munich 2019 (editorial) as well as participation in highly competitive accelerator programs in Switzerland (Kickstart), Germany and the Silicon Valley (both Plug & Play), enabled vlot to establish its brand and pilot its SaaS offering within the insurance market. At the same time, due to strong tangible interest from renown industry players within Switzerland and the EU to use vlot within a B2B(2C) setup, it became clear that a strategic shift was necessary. The move towards a B2B(2C) business model was initiated in the summer of 2019.
The use and integration of the vlot workflow provides a wide range of advantages, from a highly client-centric advisory approach, increased process efficiency due to straight-through processing, reduced cost of acquisition, acting as a digital transformation agent, improving a partner’s digital brand perception to finally creating the foundation and backbone of risk and savings marketplaces for different actors.
A resilient digital business model in times of COVID-19
A bit less than twelve months later – and during a global pandemic – vlot has effectively shifted the focus of its offering entirely to a B2B(2C) business model, providing white-label software solutions to B2B customers. By collaborating with (re-)insurers, pension funds and banks, vlot is successfully following a multichannel approach and aims to become a leading risk and retirement savings analytics provider within Europe and beyond. 2019 came to an end with a live onstage demo at DIA Munich of a chat-based underwriting solution integrated into the vlot analytics workflow. This API based interface was put together in collaboration with the innovation unit of a global re-insurer in under two weeks.
More recently, in March 2020, Generali Switzerland and the House of Insurtech Switzerland (HITS) announced a partnership with vlot. Throughout Q2 2020, vlot has been continuously improving its technology stack and product offering while also starting the shift from pilot projects to long term agreements. The current major focus of the company’s activities lies in Switzerland and Germany.
Furthermore, the successful completion of a first tranche in context of our 2020 ongoing financing round (through convertible loans) during the challenging COVID-19 times demonstrates vlot’s resilience and bodes well for the future growth ambitions of the company. Against the backdrop of the current financial and insurance market developments, COVID-19 induced behavioral shifts and long-term demographic trends have given vlot an additional advantage to leverage its technology offering and eventually achieve ambitious revenue milestones.
By reducing complexity and providing rapid and intuitive visualizations, vlot aims to give people the tools and knowledge to make the right financial decisions for their long-term financial wellbeing. At the end of the day: Only financial awareness can foster financial responsibility.
The vlot team
