Customers
Insurance
At Argenta we do more than insure. We cover your loss in the event of a car accident, house fire or theft. But we don't stop there. We stand by you until you are completely at ease again.
<Trusted financial partner Customers - Insurance >Branches >Head office
Product offering
Argenta offers non-life and health insurance (family insurance, fire, motor and hospitalisation insurance) on the one hand, and life and term life insurance, including outstanding balance insurance on the other. Argenta Assuranties also offers insurance-based investment in the form of branch 23 products.
Improving customer experience
In 2021, Argenta also instigated a number of optimisation processes for its insurance offering. The 2023 strategy sets out to automate simple, standardised tasks in the insurance process. In this way Argenta will be able to deploy its employees on more complex files and on providing customers with the requisite support and advice concerning its insurance policies.
In this context the following were achieved in 2021:
- Motor insurance simulations;
- Family insurance simulations;
- User-friendly digital claims declarations;
- A better claims following-up system for the branches;
- Sending out life insurance special conditions via the customer’s preferred channel;
- Simplification of various processes: life insurance subscription forms, optimisation of the life insurance surrender procedure in the context of anti-money laundering regulations;
- Automatic processing of the expiry dates of Argenta Life Plan branch 21 policies;
- Delivery of medical information for subscribing term life cover via the digital platform for easy acceptance. In this way, files can be decided automatically, thereby reducing the lead time for the customer.
For supplying medical information for term life insurance cover, Argenta asks customers to use the digital platform as much as possible, in order to limit the sending of medical information by post. A project has also been set up to digitise the confirmation of customers who have to pay additional (non-)medical premiums. This was delivered in March 2022.
Since January 2021, insurance certificates are sent together with the expiry notices. This permits a considerable saving on postage costs and on paper. In addition, Argenta is committed to digitally unlocking and sending documents. Today, customers can find all their documents in the app and damage history certificates are sent via the customer's preferred digital channel. In the first half of 2022, due date notices, reminder letters and insurance certificates will also be sent via the customer’s preferred channel.
Evolution of the portfolio
Belgium
The non-life and health insurance portfolio – consisting of fire, motor, family, and hospitalisation insurance – grew by grew further EUR 4.9 million in 2021 to EUR 156.9 million.
The growth is largely due to the continued strong production in fire insurance: in 2021, 25,380 new fire insurance contracts were concluded, bringing the Argenta portfolio to 213,452 policies, Thanks to the combined offering of fire and family insurance through the 'Insured Housing +' policy, the family policy has also continued to grow. For family insurance, premium income increased in 2021 by EUR 673,000.
The motor insurance portfolio reduced slightly in 2021 in terms of premium income. In January 2021, a new tariff structure was introduced, which should lead to stronger growth in the future.
In 2021, our customers subscribed nearly 40,700 new life insurance contracts. More than half of these took the form of outstanding balance insurance in the context of mortgage loans. 10,600 new non-tax investment insurance policies were also drawn up, more than 9,000 of which contain a branch 23 investment component. This partly reflects the persistent low interest rate environment and increasing interest in investments. For the reinvestment of maturing branch 21 contracts, customers again in 2021 opted more often to reinvest in branch 23. In 2021, the branch 23 fund range was rationalised, with the primary focus on AAM and Arvestar funds and third-party funds therefore disappearing from the range. Finally, more than 5,600 new fiscal savings insurance policies were also taken out. Pure term life insurance (apart from outstanding balance insurance) completes the list with still less than 1,000 new policies during 2021.
Insurance: water misery
The persistent rainfall of 13, 14 and 15 July 2021 caused unprecedented scenes in our country. Streams and rivers overflowed, streets were submerged, and houses flooded. The material damage was considerable. With the destruction of water pipes and gas and electricity distribution networks, homes were without (potable) water, heating or electricity in many places. The floods left no one untouched. Which includes Argenta. Several colleagues rolled up their sleeves to do their bit.
The total claims estimate amounted to EUR 13.3 million, for about 1,000 fire and 33 comprehensive motor claims. These July floods impacted on Argenta's result (after reinsurance) by EUR 11.4 million.