When someone files an insurance claim, the first thing they’re hoping for is reassurance. After all, that’s what insurance is there for: to protect you from unexpected costs when things go wrong. Maybe that’s a car accident, theft, an illness, or the death of a loved one. Whatever the situation, insurance should relieve your stress, not add to it.
More and more, consumers expect to have a stress-free insurance purchase and claims experience online, too. A Bitkom study showed that more than half of 16 to 29-year-olds prefer a fully digital insurance journey, and this number is on the rise.
As one of Europe’s leading insurance groups, HDI is more than aware of this trend. For over 100 years, the Talanx AG stock corporation subsidiary has been meeting the needs of businesses and individuals with affordable and comprehensive insurance protection, ranging from car to liability insurance.
Founded in a time when the insurance industry was manual and paper-based, today HDI in Germany is continually harnessing innovative digital products to meet its customers’ changing expectations and needs. In 2019, for example, it launched Firmen Digital, a fully automated digital insurance application for freelancers and small to midsize businesses. To keep their data safe, security is always top of mind for HDI.
“As an insurance company, we’re dealing with large amounts of highly sensitive data and our identity and access management systems always have to be up for that task,” explains Niklas Lammers, IT Project Manager at HDI Systeme AG, the company’s IT division. “We were looking for a centralised system with state-of-the-art defence against unauthorised permission. That’s what we found in Okta.”
Comprehensive coverage, strong security
When it came to selecting the right customer identity solution, HDI took a methodical approach. After compiling a list of possible reference projects for an evaluation project, Niklas and his team established a set of must-have criteria. “To reduce our service desk workload and simplify the user experience, we needed automated provisioning and deprovisioning features and self-service capabilities out of the box,” he shares. Each specific use case required additional features, such as multi-factor authentication and role-based access control. With Okta, HDI found it could cover all these bases and more.
Another deciding factor was governance and compliance. “To meet GDPR compliance standards, we need to make sure that all data is stored and processed in Europe under stringent data protection laws,” says Niklas. With European data centres and the AWS infrastructure in Frankfurt, Okta fulfils all of HDI’s data security demands, and with Inbound Federation, it manages trust across a range of implementations.
A life insurance for every digital identity
Before centralising identity access management across HDI’s customer-facing projects, Niklas and his team trialled Okta’s capabilities with the company’s end user interface for private customers. Today, HDI has replaced its former identity access management component with the Okta Identity Cloud, which fully authenticates users and simultaneously creates access tokens. Niklas and his team spread the token validation over several components, which gave them an additional security benefit. With Directory Integration, connecting the new identity component to the existing directory was simple.
“Centralising our identity management with Okta helped to streamline workflows into an elegant authentication system, which has reduced maintenance costs and improved the customer experience with faster logins,” says Niklas.
Delighting customers simplicity
With HDI’s new token system up and running, Niklas and his team are now extending the depth and scope of their Okta integration. This means adding new features to the customer portal and connecting more customer-facing services to the centralised identity management platform. To make the digital identities of its customers even safer, HDI is going to roll out Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication.
More broadly, HDI will use Okta for its entire Lifecycle Management, simplifying registrations and account closures. With Okta’s many supported self-service features, HDI customers will have more control over their account experience.
Better still, by replacing its previous identity components with Okta, HDI has boosted its time-to-market for new features. “Okta gives us more flexibility, allowing us to deliver new features to our customers more quickly, while gaining an edge over our competitors,” says Niklas.
Reliable protection, whatever may come
The insurance market is increasingly crowded. To compete with traditional insurance companies, user-friendly insurtech platforms, and potential offerings from tech firms like Google and Amazon, HDI tailors its online platforms to the needs of its customers. When it comes to account management, simplicity will be key. “Our customers don’t want to spend time managing their accounts,” says Niklas. “That’s why social logins via social media platforms are gaining popularity, and this is just one of many integrations Okta supports. With Okta, we’re future proofing our ability to give customers their ideal login experience,” he adds.
“Our journey with Okta has already paid off, but it’s really just beginning. With a vast portfolio of features, endless scalability, and flexible authentication methods, Okta is an excellent insurance against all the challenges of identity management, today and in the future,” Niklas concludes.
