Clever insurance for fleets
Last year, German motor insurers attempted to push through major restructuring measures with their customers due to the very high claims inflation of an estimated 15 percent. In 2024, it can be seen that the corresponding premium income has increased by less than 10 percent on average. This means that the cost pressure on insurers has once again increased significantly. While motor insurance companies suffered an estimated loss of more than three billion euros in 2023, it is estimated that they will make a loss of at least 2.5 billion euros in 2024.
There are many reasons for the strong cost pressure in car insurance: rising spare parts costs, very high hourly rates charged by garages and more expensive repairs due to complex assistance systems. This trend has intensified significantly in recent years. According to the German Insurance Association (GDV), car spare parts, for example, have become more expensive by over five percentage points per year since 2013. Accordingly, car manufacturers have increased prices by an average of 9.7 percentage points between August 2022 and August 2023 alone. The same applies to the development of hourly rates: From the beginning of 2017 to the beginning of 2021, the cost per labour hour in garages rose by around 22 euros - and the trend is still rising, as this development has continued since then.
Following initial discussions with the major German motor insurers, the Competence Centre Ecclesia Mobility is expecting average pure rate adjustments of 15 to 20 percent for the year 2025. However, these premium increases do not include individual restructuring due to the claims experience. Here, the mobility service provider expects premium increases of more than 50 percent in some cases.
So far, there are also no signs of a real price war on the market. Insurance companies will concentrate on getting their own portfolios out of the red. Savings are only possible with fleets that are doing very well in terms of claims. As there is no end in sight to the rise in prices, the cost pressure will remain very high even after 2025.
Car insurance - facts, figures and data
Car insurance continues to be the largest segment in property and casualty insurance. Overall, insurers have estimated net premium income of around 30.3 billion euros for 2023. In 2022 and 2021, this figure was 29.1 billion euros each.
In the years before the pandemic, claims expenses had risen to a total of just under 25 billion in 2019. The loss cost ratios were consistently just below 100 percent throughout these years. In the pandemic years 2020 and 2021, claims expenses fell significantly due to the low volume of traffic. This trend has reversed again since 2022: a total of 26.1 billion euros in claims payments were paid out. In 2023, the figure was already 29.6 billion euros.
Ecclesia Mobility
Our customers benefit from the strengths of our motor vehicle departments for the traditional business fields and the industrial business field when they receive comprehensive support from the Competence Centre Ecclesia Mobility. With a total of over 100 colleagues, we are at work for our customers.
We focus our expertise in the traditional areas of motor vehicle contracts and motor vehicle claims. With Ecclesia Mobility and a new sales unit, we exclusively offer a complete ecosystem with many cooperation partners and services. This includes optional modules such as the fleet management system ecfleet, co-operations with various service providers such as A.T.U. and junited Autoglas, with whom we have negotiated attractive special conditions. We also offer a wide range of services relating to electromobility and vehicle procurement in cooperation with other partners.
The Process Management and Markets division also exists. Here we focus on the optimisation of daily processes in contract and claims processing and the associated digitalisation. And we hold strategic discussions with our major partners in the fleet insurance sector (traditional and industrial) in order to obtain the best possible conditions and services for our customers despite market pressure.
Further information on Ecclesia Mobility can be found here.