The FINANCIAL — New company on the insurance market Kopenbur has built up an impressive base of customers since it started operational activities and currently has representative offices in Batumi, Kutaisi and Poti, according to Ivane Kakhadze, General Director at Kopenbur. In the coming year it plans to add more cities to the ‘Kopenbur map’.
Its high quality service, innovative products and individual approach to customers are the main advantages of Kopenbur’s, and encourage the company to establish new, special standards on the Georgian insurance sector. Kopenbur plans to occupy a significant share of the market in the field of non-life insurance and to make it into the top three insurance companies by the end of 2015.
More than GEL 1.5 million was invested in Georgia by the newly opened insurance company Kopenbur which was established in Georgia in May 2014 by German founder and chairman of the supervisory board Franjo Vidichek. Born in Croatia, Vidichek moved to Germany at the age of four and has lived there since. His first professional activities were linked to insurance. He currently has several businesses in both Bosnia and Croatia.
In Georgia Vidichek runs Kopenbur with local partner Zviad Chachanidze, a member of the supervisory board, and Ivane Kakhadze, CEO of the company.
Kopenbur works in the field of car, property, liability and cargo insurance for the retail as well as corporate segments.
In the initial stages the company will not be operating in the field of life insurance, but the supervisory board members do not rule out the possibility of being involved in this field later on. The company is focused on high quality and innovative insurance products. To this end, the company is planning strategic cooperation with a variety of Georgia’s leading companies.
The company will introduce such products and innovations that have not been released before by any market player, company representatives claim. Kopenbur serves individuals as well as legal entities. The insurance products which Kopenbur is introducing have been developed to fully fit local market requirements, the staff have all been prepared as well as service points, according to company officials.
Group insurance ‘Team Casco’ is the first of the innovative products that Kopenbur has planned to introduce to its customers.
“In terms of car insurance Kopenbur has started introducing its new product group insurance Team Casco. The product enables customers to insure collectively, within one limit, to distribute costs and significantly reduce individual insurance fees for each member of the group. This allows for each member to have a significantly reduced insurance premium than they would otherwise have in the case of individual insurance. What’s more, this is not all that we plan to do in the direction of car insurance. We are going to add other innovative products soon,” Kakhadze said.
Currently, about 50 people are employed at Kopenbur and their number is increasing in accordance with the company’s growth. When Kopenbur first opened, just 30 people were employed by the company.
Kopenbur is not going to offer any cheaper products or less expensive service to win over customers from other insurance companies, it instead aims to offer good service at appropriate prices.
“First of all, we put an accent on quality and not on low price. I do not think that it is right to be focused on offering cheaper prices as if you are providing truly high quality then it is impossible to have low prices too. The price should reflect the quality. Kopenbur will not be a cheap insurance company but it will be very high quality and have proper prices. In addition, Kopenbur does not have competitors in Georgia, on the contrary – it is we that are the competitors of the local companies,” Kakhadze said.
While talking about the contribution that Kopenbur will make in terms of developing the Georgian insurance market Kakhadze says that with the creation of innovative products the company will also cooperate with the Government to provide ideas for new regulations.
“Here in Georgia all the companies offer more or less the same insurance packages, which is not right. We need to think about all the different customers and their different needs. It is impossible for one kind of insurance package to fit all kinds of different customers’ needs. We are therefore going to bring a wide range of insurance products to the market,” he said.
Our contribution to the development of the insurance market in Georgia is that we are going to bring innovative and very useful products here. We are also going to give ideas to the Government and the relevant officials in the insurance market in Georgia,” Kakhadze said.
“In general, insurance is a profitable business in Georgia. Perhaps some insurance companies have problems but in total overall market result are fine on the balance sheet. We intend to be included in the top three non-life insurance companies in Georgia by the end of 2015. It is everyone’s goal to achieve the best results and we will do our utmost to make this happen. The success will depend on our strategy, management, as well as all the products that we will be introducing to customers,” said Kakhadze.
Q. What is it that makes Team Casco an innovative product, and what competitive advantage does it have?
A. This product enables a group of people to share the risks and insure a car collectively, within one limit. Accordingly, they take on each others’ risks but in return they pay less for the insurance premium than they would pay in the case of individual insurance. Group insurance is available for three or more participants, which may have any kind of car no matter the brand, price or date of issue of the car. Within the framework of group insurance the customers search for one insurance package as opposed to three separate individual insurances. This is a very comfortable offer for many.
For example, if three friends have cars worth USD 5,000, USD 10,000 and USD 15,000, then instead of purchasing three different individual insurance packages (the total limit of which would be USD 30,000), they can unite in Team Casco and get insurance under one common, efficiently-costing USD 15,000 limit.
Q. What partner companies do you have in the direction of car insurance and what joint offers do you have with them?
A. We put an accent on high quality and distinguished standards when choosing our partner company. There is an agreement about a strategic partnership between Kopenbur and Tegeta Motors, which enables us to provide high quality service when it comes to necessity. We also have other very important partners which are official car dealers.
As for joint offers for customers, together with Tegeta Motors we have designed a distinguished and unique product – whereby those who are insured at Kopenbur will benefit from a GEL 100 voucher service at Tegeta Motors, discounts on golden and silver cards, as well as car replacement for seven days a year in the event of an insurance necessity.
Discussion about this post