Leading German insurer scales and expands its services with universal API management

Universal API Management gives companies visibility and control over APIs, wherever they are and whatever form they take. A leading German insurance provider shows how a forward-looking company brings that vision to life to benefit their bottom line, customers, partners, and entire digital ecosystem.

This insurance company operates across Europe, offering a comprehensive portfolio of services and multiple product lines, including personal and business insurance.

Because so many customers now expect their insurers to provide personalized products and responsive online experiences, the company saw the need to improve its ability to adapt, enhance, and expand its offerings.

A spokesperson for the company confirms:

“Competition is growing all the time, and as new fintechs and insurtechs enter the market, it’s essential to offer relevant, high-quality services.”

Driving growth strategy with APIs

This major insurer knew that it needed to accelerate its growth strategy—first by introducing new services through a combination of in-house development and insurtech acquisition, and then through integration with external fintech and insurtech ecosystems.

For all these scenarios, the company recognized APIs as key enabling technologies for rolling out new services faster and connecting them with fintech and insuretech partners.  Taking a siloed approach to API management, however, presented risks.

“We identified API security and governance as our two key priorities,” continues the spokesperson. “You can’t protect what you can’t see, and without a single point of control for API management, we had no way to accurately assess or mitigate risks. And crucially for the business, a single API management layer would facilitate the development of new services, helping us to bring innovative offerings to customers faster.”

Selecting the right platform

After exploring the solutions available in the marketplace, the insurance company selected Axway’s Amplify Platform as the foundation for its API-driven strategy. Amplify platform supports a universal API management approach that:

• Enables the company to discover, use, and govern APIs efficiently from a single point of control
• Enforces stringent security and governance controls, reducing risk
• Facilitates fintech and insurtech integration, enhancing the customer experience
• Offers scalability to double the number of calls within three years

“Compared to API management tools I have used in the past, the Amplify Platform makes it much easier to implement API policies and create destinations such as message queues and FTP servers,” comments the spokesperson.

“The Amplify Platform also allows us to greatly enhance API security and transparency. As we continue to cultivate new partnerships with insurtechs and integrate more deeply into fintech partner ecosystems, this capability will become even more important.”

Leveraging a trusted partnership

In partnership with experts from Axway Professional Services, the insurer deployed the new API management platform without disruption to existing digital services.

Since the insurer first deployed Amplify Platform, API calls have increased by a factor of eight.

Today, the company manages 160 production APIs with 40 million calls a month.

“Integrating API management into our CI/CD pipeline has allowed us to scale without compromising on our high standards around data governance and security,” says the spokesperson.

“Based on the current trend, we anticipate that our annual API call volumes will double in the next three years — and the Amplify Platform equips us to handle that growth with ease.”

Thriving in a competitive market

Looking ahead, Amplify Platform positions the company to differentiate its services and stay ahead of competitors.

“We now use the Amplify Platform to support a wide range of customer-facing services, including an API-powered portal that keeps users updated on the status of their insurance claims,” concludes the spokesperson.

“Our work with Axway will help us bring new fintech and insurtech-enabled services to market in an agile, secure way — an important differentiator in today’s insurance space.”