Expensive repairs
HUK wants to take over the Pitstop car repair chain
HUK Coburg is breaking new ground: the market leader among German motor vehicle insurers wants to have cars repaired under its own management in the future.
Germany’s largest motor vehicle insurer HUK Coburg has announced the takeover of the Pitstop car repair shop chain. If the antitrust authorities agree, the Upper Franconian insurance company wants to increase its previous stake in Pitstop from 25.1 to 84.9 percent on January 2nd. HUK did not disclose the purchase price. The previous Pitstop majority owner Stefan Kulas is giving up his shareholding, but will remain in the management. The tire manufacturer Bridgestone remains a minority owner with a good 15 percent.
HUK wants to be more than just an insurer
“With the majority stake, we are consistently taking the next step in the orientation of HUK-COBURG as a service provider for all aspects of mobility,” said HUK CEO Klaus-Jürgen Heitmann. He used manager jargon to describe the strategy that HUK has been pursuing for several years to expand the traditional insurance business with transactions and services relating to cars. The company also operates an online exchange for used cars, the “Autowelt”.
Pitstop is present in over 200 cities
With almost 14 million insured vehicles, HUK is the market leader on the German car insurance market, ahead of Allianz. The usual approach to motor vehicle tariffs is that they are tied to a workshop: customers have their cars and motorcycles repaired at workshops specified by the insurer and pay lower premiums than if they freely choose a workshop. Pitstop was previously one of these HUK authorized workshops. According to the company, the workshop chain founded in 1970 and based in Mülheim an der Ruhr is represented in over 200 cities and employs 1,300 people.
Workshops are cost drivers for insurers
Workshop costs are of great importance for motor vehicle insurers, as expensive repairs increase the sums paid out to customers in the event of a claim. For HUK, taking over a workshop chain would mean that it can manage this cost factor more easily. In the past two years, German insurers’ entire motor vehicle business has slipped into the red. The main reason is the rising spare parts prices, another is the increase in workshop costs. Apart from that, the majority opinion in the insurance industry is that the number of cars in Germany will stagnate or decline in the future. Since the motor vehicle insurance market is no longer expected to grow, many companies are looking for new sources of revenue.
dpa
Source: Stern
