The Future of Insurance Podcast – Désirée Mettraux
CEO OCC Assekuradeur
Season 2, Episode 14, February 1, 2022
Guest Bio
Désirée Mettraux is CEO of classic car insurance specialist OCC Assekuradeur GmbH in Germany. OCC is the market leader in the DACH region for the insurance of classic vehicles. The 40 year old joined the company with a wealth of experience from various areas of responsibility in the insurance industry: between 2007 and 2012 she headed the department of motor vehicles and vessels at National Suisse, based in Basel/Switzerland. In this position she held responsible for developing various motor vehicle insurance products. Désirée’s focus is digital business, for which she’s also consulting the management team of online classic vehicle trading platform ‘Classic Trader’.
The Swiss national worked as a mentor for various startups in the digital realm and is a co-founder of Swiss camper van hire portal mycamper.ch, where she’s still an active member of the board. Désirée left Creadi AG in July 2019, a Basel based InsurTech startup which she co-founded in 2016 and headed as CEO.
The music enthusiast and mother of twins lives in Hamburg, Germany with her husband and daughters.
Highlights from the Show
- OCC is a classic car MGA and the market leader in Germany and Switzerland, similar to what Haggerty is in the US
- Désirée joined 3 years ago to help the company transform and digitize
- OCC plays in an interesting niche, but there are many different target groups within it that are extremely different, with some classic cars being old and lower-value, whereas others are extremely high-end, with one recent example selling for $39 million
- Despite not being a classic car enthusiast before, Désirée has worked in the Auto/Motor insurance space for years, and had started a company in the camper sharing space
- While OCC is selling auto insurance, there is a very different level of engagement with the product than in the mainline auto market
- While this is a blessing, it also means the owners have a much higher bar you have to meet
- You need to give customers a choice – not just digital only, but digital first because not every customer wants to work the same way
- By expanding your view to other segments, you are forced out of your comfort zone and remember that you aren’t the customer so you’re forced to ask questions and learn rather than assume or presume you know the answer always
- As an industry, we tend to think from the inside in product development and then are surprised when it does work (when this approach would have worked 20 years ago)
- We need to take an outside-in view, especially these days
- This is the start of a new period of change and digitization in the insurance industry
- We talked about whether the classic car space is protected from change and immune to the impact of telematics, or if it being a successful niche, it has more means to innovate and change
- The innovation comes in different ways in this space, thinking across the value chain and how the customer engages in the community and product that’s being insured
- What does “innovation” mean, and you can only be as innovative as your customer allows you to be
- Désirée sees embedded insurance is a great opportunity to acquire more customers
- For Desiree, there’s one recipe, and that’s not to overthink things and just do it
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Thank you to our sponsor
Special thanks to Duck Creek (duckcreek.com) and their Conversations on the Creek (duckcreek.com/podcasts), for sponsoring this episode.
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