Heilbronner Stimme: Insurance broker increases turnover 2021 – Managing director shows concern about development of the industry
By editor Jürgen Paul
Insurance broker Dr. Hörtkorn has developed well despite the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Nevertheless, Managing Director Christian Hörtkorn is looking forward to “being on the road again,” as he says.
Customer care
After all, the consulting-intensive insurance business with medium-sized customers thrives on personal contacts, which were hardly possible in the past two years due to Corona. “Customer care was therefore our main focus,” says Hörtkorn. The Heilbronn brokerage firm looks after medium-sized customers from all sectors of the economy throughout Germany, including many well-known addresses from the region. The acquisition of new customers through sales, on the other hand, has recently taken a back seat, because this also requires personal encounters.
Nevertheless, the Hörtkorn Group increased its commission and fee-based sales to 30 million euros last year. Hörtkorn is very satisfied with the growth of five to ten percent. The subsidiary Hörtkorn Finanzen had performed above average. The subsidiary Dr. Hörtkorn Munich, which specializes in cyber insurance, is also recording steady growth, says the managing director. The Heilbronn-based insurance professionals apparently had the right instinct when they entered this field 2016. “There is a huge demand for consulting,” says Hörtkorn, adding that the topic of cyber security is moving the entire German SME sector.
There is also movement in the insurance industry, which Hörtkorn says is undergoing a “complete transformation.” “Making a profit is the top priority,” says the CEO. In business, of course, it’s always about that. But in the past, he says, insurers were very much sales-oriented in the marketplace in order to supply as many new customers as possible with policies. “Currently, sales has to take a back seat to controllers,” Hörtkorn says. As a large brokerage company with more than 220 employees, the Heilbronn-based company is looking for “partners in the insurance industry who still want to do business”. For example, more and more insurers are withdrawing from the area of fire insurance, which is so important for small and medium-sized businesses, because of the complexity and the enormous price pressure, or are no longer making offers to customers at all. Christian Hörtkorn sees this development with concern. “An insurer is there to assume risks. In difficult times, you can’t shirk your responsibility,” says Hörtkorn, who is also president of the international broker network Uniba Partners, which has more than 90 member companies with 5,500 employees.
Confidence
The Heilbronn-based company is optimistic about the current year, as sales are likely to really take off again. “I expect a good year with growth for the entire group,” says Hörtkorn. The fact that British investors have been increasingly buying up German insurance brokers for some time now leaves the Heilbronner cold. “We will not and do not have to sell,” emphasizes Hörtkorn, who himself regularly receives offers to buy.
