• At DIA Amsterdam, GROHE and Finnish insurance partner LähiTapiola presented their innovative concept of a lifelong, proactive security partnership for customers, aiming to reduce water damage – the biggest cost driver in the home insurance sector – by 50% based on GROHE’s end-to-end water security solution.
• GROHE and LähiTapiola started the roll-out of GROHE Sense and Sense Guard, GROHE’s intelligent water security system in thousands of Finnish homes.
• By 2026, about 100,000 homes in Finland will be protected from water damage thanks to GROHE Sense and Sense Guard.

Düsseldorf, Germany, 10th July 2019. With leaking pipes, washing machines and boilers as well as flooded cellars water can cause substantial damage to a home and generates ever increasing payouts by insurers. In Finland, LähiTapiola refuses to accept this inconvenient truth by introducing GROHE’s proactive water security system to their policyholders. In a large-scale roll-out the partners install the GROHE Sense water security system in thousands of homes of selected customers. Together, the two partners presented the project at the Digital Insurance Agenda (DIA) in Amsterdam this year, the largest InsurTech event in Europe.

“We are set for a fundamental transformation of the insurance sector, acting proactively to prevent damage before it turns into a cost factor in the first place. This first-of-a-kind collaboration will reduce water damage payouts by 50% by 2025 and help us keep our top line,” says Anu Koskenvuo, Director, LähiTapiola. “It’s a perfect match. With LähiTapiola we work hand in hand for residential water security, applying an innovative concept: proactive water security. GROHE offers an end-to-end solution for eliminating the biggest cost driver of the home insurance sector: water damage. This solution is a significant game-changer for the home insurance business,” says Bert Depiere, Director Digital Innovations GROHE AG. “Together with LähiTapiola we have established a blueprint for mass-scale roll-outs of water security systems, limiting the risks for insurers. Our solution includes innovative services like training, installation, and data services.”

The roll-out of GROHE’s Sense systems to LähiTapiola customers’ homes will run for several years. Installations will be expanded gradually over this year with a scheduled scaling to over 100,000 LähiTapiola customers’ homes until 2026. With this move, home insurance as a product is going to radically change, potentially offering a completely new promise of proactivity to the consumer.

Preventing Damage, Lessening Costs
Although water damage is the biggest risk to homes and causes more damage than fires or severe weather, only three per cent of all European households are equipped with a system for protection against water damage. In Finland alone, almost 40,000 water damage cases are reported to insurance companies each year, resulting in more than 160 million euros that have to be paid to policyholders. Both damages and claims have been increasing in the 21st century. The aging housing stock and aging pipelines lead to an increase in leakage damage. Lower costs, new materials and the increased complexity of devices installed in the homes are further pushing the average claim value up. When damage costs increase, this also raises the annual amount of insurance compensation. On average in Europe, water damage costs approximately 2,300 euros per case – including detection, repair and replacement of damaged items. But there is a gap of nearly 900 euros between that figure and the average amount reimbursed by insurance companies.

The installation of GROHE Sense and Sense Guard will reduce the number of claims and the claim size for water damage and insurers. It will bring them peace of mind. That’s why GROHE now helps insurers in implementing the product in a complete solution. Since having Sense and Sense Guard on the market for 1.5 years now, GROHE – a traditional sanitary manufacturer – already was rated one of the DIA Top 100 InsurTech companies in 2018.

For more information about the GROHE water security system Sense, please visit:
www.grohe.com