Ozon and Wildberries plan to create their own insurance companies

Large marketplaces are going to develop the insurance business. Ozon plans to launch its own insurance company in the second half of this year, and Wildberries is also considering the possibility of entering this market. Experts believe that this will increase profits from financial services. Experts believe that buying a licensed insurance company may be more profitable than creating one from scratch. In some cases, partnership with existing companies using the White Label model will be effective.

As Kommersant was told at Ozone, the marketplace is going to launch an insurance line of business. At the first stage, it is planned to attract more than 20 specialists, the launch of the first insurance products is planned for the second half of 2024. The team will be headed by the former head of Rosbank Insurance Denis Gavrilov. Wildberries say that the marketplace is also considering the possibility of launching insurance products as part of the fintech area, but did not disclose details. Yandex Market did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

Ozone clarified that it plans to launch “a wide pool of insurance services for 46 million clients and more than 450 thousand entrepreneurs who work with the marketplace.” The company plans to insure the risks of sellers, points of delivery of orders and goods, in particular, purchases from abroad.

The marketplace does not disclose whether it will create an insurance company from scratch or buy an existing one. Market participants say that the period for obtaining a license can be from six months to a year. As Sergei Kharitonov, managing partner of the Marillion group of companies, explained, the minimum authorized capital should be 300 million rubles. In addition, “funds will be required for the initial costs of maintaining the company before the start of active operations, and we can talk about a significant amount,” the expert notes.

Alexey Khomyakov, executive director for partnership sales of the Zetta Insurance group, believes that the white label model in partnership with an existing insurer can be effective. It involves insuring on its own behalf, without acting as a service provider: “This approach does not require the creation of its own underwriting and settlement division; the insurance company has this expertise and infrastructure.”

Most market participants agree that it is easier to buy a small company with a valid license. But there are also risks. According to Alexey Yanin, managing director for ratings of insurance and investment companies at Expert RA, this option is faster, but “there is a risk of getting skeletons in the closet from a previous business.” In addition, according to a Kommersant source in the financial market, “today it is extremely difficult to find such a company at an adequate price.”

According to Sergei Kharitonov, the cost of the insurer is influenced by the quality of the portfolio and assets, as well as the set of licenses: “The price is usually formed as the amount of the authorized capital, the amount of real net assets plus the negotiated price for the license.” This year, for companies created before 2019, it is still possible to have an authorized capital of 240 million rubles. However, before January 1, 2025 it is necessary to increase it to 300 million rubles.

In general, experts assess the marketplace initiative positively. Partner B1 Tatyana Samsonova believes that the creation of your own insurance company may be dictated by the desire to keep profits from new products within the group, taking advantage of the existing sales channel: “By selling policies of other companies, the marketplace will receive income only in the form of a commission, which is less than the profit from the insurance contract “, she explains.

General Director of Infoline-Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov notes that financial services have become one of the key growth points for the marketplace business: “All market participants already have their own banks – in this regard, the players will form a full range of financial services.”

However, experts also note difficulties with insurance on marketplaces. “If we are talking about sellers, then most of them are small individual entrepreneurs, who still need to instill a culture of voluntary insurance, because when you receive a small profit, and even with a delay, you have no time for the policy,” explains the general director of the insurance consultant AST Innokenty Lukyanov. At the same time, according to him, “the issue of risk protection for large retailers has already been resolved.”

As for consumers, Mr. Lukyanov adds, problems may arise “due to their lack of the Ozone association and insurance: citizens come to the marketplace for goods, not financial services.”

Maxim Builov, Yulia Poslavskaya