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Collibra helps SIGNAL IDUNA use data to improve customers’ lives

Headquarters
Germany
Employees
1,000+
Industry
Financial services
Customer since
2021

In today’s digital and data-dominated world, it may be surprising to know that SIGNAL IDUNA, a leading German insurer, has been a data-driven business since it was founded in 1907. Back then, data was applied for calculating risks with a pen and paper. Today, data promises to have a profoundly deeper and more impactful influence on SIGNAL IDUNA and its customers. To help maximize the value of its data, improve operations, grow revenue and significantly improve services for customers, the company is using the Collibra Platform.

Goal

Delivering best quality services

SIGNAL IDUNA is one of Germany’s top 10 insurance and financial services companies. It serves around 12 million customers with a portfolio of health, property, vehicle, business insurance, and associated products.

Whether it is home, car, health, or business insurance, SIGNAL IDUNA does not compete mainly on price, but rather the quality of service. It sees data as critical to modernizing and improving the way the business and its people operate so that it can continue delivering first-class services to customers.

“SIGNAL IDUNA is a traditional business with systems and processes that have grown over decades,” said Andreas Zolnowski, Center of Excellence Lead Data Office/ Governance at SIGNAL IDUNA. “But the main question is: are we ready for the future? What must we do to face future challenges, including more competition, demanding customers and complex regulations? How can we achieve better innovation, processes and customer services?”

The data SIGNAL IDUNA collects today is more comprehensive and detailed than ever. Home insurance involves data about property and people but also includes data about incidents and claims over time. The data is not about only one product or customer. It encompasses thousands of customers and reveals intelligence and opportunities to develop new products and services. For instance, drivers can use in-car Internet of Things devices to gather data about their careful driving to reduce premiums and trends to fine-tune insurance products.

Strategy

Getting the right data often requires time and effort

As well as traditional systems and processes, data in SIGNAL IDUNA had become departmentalized and siloed. Getting access to data, ensuring quality, and determining ownership was challenging. “Definition and who owned the data was not always clear,” stated Zolnowski. “There was no central register, so searching and finding data was slow and complex. For data to work effectively, we need to know the quality. Getting data was taking a lot of time.”

SIGNAL IDUNA aimed to have everyone in the company using AI and data to drive decision-making by 2030. Therefore, addressing data management and data governance was essential.

SIGNAL IDUNA turned to Collibra because it differs from other data management solutions. “Collibra offers a product that is a data catalog and puts information in one place, but it also offers a data governance platform and a way to improve data processes,” explained Zolnowski. “Collibra is not a typical data vendor where data governance is a small part of a suite of products. It focuses on data governance and management and is great at connecting with many other solution vendors.”

SIGNAL IDUNA has implemented Collibra Data Intelligence Platform offering a data catalog, governance, quality, and security. Because Collibra is a SaaS solution, the setup was straightforward. “From a technical point of view, we sign the contract, and the next day, we have access to Collibra. Of course, we must connect our environment with Collibra, like single sign-on and databases, which is straightforward.”

Solution

Migrating to Google Cloud

SIGNAL IDUNA migrated Collibra to Google Cloud Platform when Google Cloud and SIGNAL IDUNA agreed to act as strategic partner in the German insurance sector. This gave the business access to data tools such as Google’s data warehouse, BigQuery, which integrates with Collibra.

Currently, SIGNAL IDUNA has a hybrid on-premises and cloud environment, but in a few years, it will shift to cloud only using mainly Google Cloud. “We are building up our infrastructure in Google to implement use cases and innovate analytics, and we have integrated Collibra into the Google Cloud environment for data governance,” explained Zolnowski. “The advantage of Collibra compared to other solutions is enabling data governance across both cloud and on-premises as we transition to a cloud-only environment.”

SIGNAL IDUNA uses Collibra connectors to integrate with Google Cloud and plans closer integration when the Collibra-Google Cloud partnership develops bidirectional communication connectors between Google Cloud’s Dataplex data catalog and the Collibra Data Catalog. This integration forms the basis for seamless work with data in different environments and thus supports the transformation of the data landscape to the cloud. SIGNAL IDUNA has also started trialing Collibra Data Lineage to improve data workflows. In 2025, the company plans to roll out Collibra Data Marketplace.

Improving customers’ lives

SIGNAL IDUNA uses Collibra as the foundation for developing data management and governance processes and guidelines for the whole enterprise. “The main benefit and key value proposition of Collibra is improving our processes,” stated Zolnowski. “It means we can see what data exists, shop for it, get it approved, and get high-quality data flowing throughout the business. This is how we will develop high quality services that improve the lives of our customers.”

SIGNAL IDUNA expects that the time required for finding and accessing data will fall dramatically from weeks to a few hours. Zolnowski said, “If we can get our data faster and we know the quality of the data, then return on investment, time to value, and time to market is much better and faster. This is what Collibra will deliver for SIGNAL IDUNA.”

Zolnowski explained the impact of Collibra on internal operations and customers. “If we can understand customers better, we can provide better solutions for them. Before, there were paper insurance certificates. Now, we are using data to offer value-added, more personalized services. When we sell an insurance policy to a customer, we gather information about the customer. SIGNAL IDUNA’s services can be improved by using Collibra to advance processes and automate and reduce manual steps. A claim, for instance, can be processed more efficiently, and the customer gets paid sooner.”

Results

Better decisions

Decision-making at SIGNAL IDUNA was based on more static data, with reports printed out and given to management. “The rationale behind Collibra and our data governance initiative is focused on developing an agile and dynamic data-driven culture,” added Zolnowski. “Implementing better processes and decision-making frameworks so business directors can drill down and explore data means we get better decisions,”

The transformation to a data-driven culture is also driven by the strategic partnership with Google Cloud. “By providing top-notch cloud services, Google Cloud forms the technological foundation for the future by enabling (generative) AI, machine learning, and analytics. Leveraging the integration between Google Cloud and Collibra helps to unlock currently untapped value from our data.”

Zolnowski concluded, “Collibra is essential to our data-driven transformation at SIGNAL IDUNA. It is the umbrella over on-premises and cloud environments, unifying data silos to create value for customers. Collibra means we have one place for information about data quality, ownership, and lineage, and whatever the type of insurance they manage, our staff can communicate better, be more precise, and deliver better solutions for customers.”

Collibra is essential to our data-driven transformation at SIGNAL IDUNA. It is the umbrella over on-premises and cloud environments, unifying data silos to create value for customers. Collibra means we have one place for information about data quality, ownership, and lineage and whatever the type of insurance they manage, our staff can communicate better, be more precise, and deliver better solutions for customers.

Andreas Zolnowski headshot

Andreas Zolnowski

Center of Excellence Lead Data Office/ Governance, Signal Iduna

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