The shock came a good year ago: Baloise boss Gert De Winter (56) was diagnosed with a tumor in his esophagus. As a result, he was only able to fulfill the CEO role to a limited extent until the summer. Swiss boss Michael Müller takes over the operational management of the insurance group.
De Winter has been back since August – she beat cancer. As De Winter said in an interview with AWP, the Baloise boss is now ready to tackle the myriad operational challenges ahead in the year ahead. One of these is inflation, which is particularly prevalent in the foreign markets of Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. “We need to increase premiums in this environment. We have no choice,” says De Winter. This happens, for example, with annual contract renewal through inflation-linked mechanisms or tariffs tied to wage costs.
It is not yet clear whether and when prices will be raised in Switzerland, according to De Winter. “We are constantly analyzing the situation and then adjusting prices if necessary.”
Capital raising is no problem
In life insurance, Baloise remains true to its strategy even in the environment of rising interest rates and relies primarily on capital-saving products. “At the same time, we maintain full coverage with all-round protection across our range of professional benefits. Popular with SMEs.”
Rising interest rates on the balance sheet also mean a contraction in fixed income investments and therefore the valuation of equity. Only in the first half of the year, the latter fell by around 30 percent. The Baloise boss assured him that there would be no need to raise capital even if interest rates continued to rise.
“We are in very good shape,” he continued. The determining factor is the economic perspective in the Swiss Solvency Test. “The SST rate rose ten percentage points to 230 percent in the first half of the year,” says De Winter.
Baloise wants to grow in the future, primarily in Belgium and Germany, and through the expansion of its digital offerings. In addition to already established German online insurer Friday, De Winter sees good growth potential in ridesharing service provider GoMore and Swiss relocation platform Movu. (SDA)