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All startups dream of financial independence and success, but operating a business comes with a lot of risk. Insurance is a necessary expense for businesses of all sizes. Unfortunately, the insurance market has many challenges, which has made obtaining adequate coverage increasingly difficult.

In response to these challenges, Oliver Hahn, an entrepreneur, captive insurance expert, and the founder of Peak Insurance is working to reshape the future of insurance for growing businesses. Captive insurance is a type of self-insurance where a parent company or group creates a licensed insurance company to provide coverage for itself. Hahn hopes to make captive insurance available across all industries.

Oliver Hahn's Origins in Business Startups

Oliver Hahn became involved in startups in 2019 with an internship at Picus Capital. This early-stage venture capital fund had a wide reach, with offices in New York, London, Munich, and Beijing. Following this internship, he joined Finn, a car subscription company offering 6 to 18-month vehicle subscriptions. The team at Finn grew from five to over 100 employees during Hahn's time there, and the company is now the largest car subscription service in Europe.

After a year, Hahn left Finn to pursue new opportunities at Kyte, a small U.S.-based mobility startup that delivers rental cars to customers on demand. He joined the company as Head of Finance and went on to lead the fleet team and manage vehicle acquisitions and sales. The fleet grew from just 20 vehicles to over 5,000 during Hahn's time with Kyte. Hahn was also instrumental in raising over $100 million in equity and $200 million in debt to propel the company's growth.

The Challenges of Risk Management and Insurance

Oliver Hahn gradually took on more roles at Kyte, including overseeing operations and risk management. Kyte required a good insurance policy, but Hahn began to see the difficulties of managing insurance for a growing business.

Even though Kyte had a strong risk profile that should theoretically have made it a good investment for insurers, the company was paying above-market rates because the traditional insurance carriers that Kyte approached weren't pricing the risk correctly. To address this challenge, Hahn established Kyte's own captive insurance entity.

Better Operations Through Captive Insurance

By establishing a captive insurance entity, Kyte took back control over its risk management operations and insurance costs. Instead of paying premiums to an outside company, Kyte could assess and cover its own risks. After switching to captive insurance, profits from selling insurance products to its renters tripled, which led to building an 8-figure profit stream for Kyte, and the premium for the company's own fleet was reduced by almost 50%.

The Difficulties of Obtaining Captive Insurance

Although establishing a captive insurance entity was transformative for Kyte, accessing this solution wasn't easy. Captive insurance remains a relatively unknown and underdeveloped system, with a significant misalignment of incentives for traditional brokers and insurance carriers.

Brokers and carriers have little incentive to promote it as a solution, as it often leads to lower insurance premiums and commissions. Additionally, the process of configuring captive insurance can be complex and time-consuming, especially for those unfamiliar with the concept.

Oliver Hahn's Inspiration to Establish Peak Insurance

Working through the difficulties of establishing a captive insurance entity for Kyte inspired Oliver Hahn. He realized that while various Fortune 500 companies were enjoying the benefits of captive insurance, the challenges of establishing it made it an elusive goal for many medium and large businesses.

This sparked the idea for Peak Insurance, a company whose mission is to help medium and large-sized businesses take advantage of captive insurance solutions. Peak simplifies the entire process, including program design, risk management, captive setup, and ongoing management.

Alternative Risk Management for All

Oliver Hahn experienced difficulties and inequities across the insurance industry, but captive insurance has proven successful for many large and established businesses. "The fact that 90% of Fortune 500 companies operate their own captive insurance programs highlights the immense potential of this solution," Hahn explains. However, beyond the Fortune 500, there is a sharp decline in adoption.

Hahn believes captive insurance makes sense for companies spending at least $1–2 million on insurance premiums. "The current insurance market is clearly broken—premiums keep rising, and good risks are consistently subsidizing bad ones," he says. "Additionally, many insurance carriers have become bureaucratic giants with high operational costs, which are passed on to customers through increased premiums."

The Success of Peak Insurance in Mobility Insurance

Within its first six months, Peak onboarded over 50,000 vehicles to its insurance solutions. The company has quickly emerged as a leading player in mobility insurance and is now on track to reach $15 million in Gross Written Premium by the end of the year. All of this was accomplished without raising any venture capital.

Disrupting the Insurance Industry Across All Sectors

Peak is disrupting the insurance industry by making captive insurance accessible to medium-sized businesses. They started by insuring fleets because that's where the founder and the team's expertise lies, but they plan to make captive insurance accessible across all industries.

Oliver Hahn believes captive insurance is versatile and can be applied to any business, regardless of sector. He plans to continue growing Peak to carry out its mission of empowering companies to create custom insurance programs with minimal overhead and maximum efficiency.

Ingenuity and a Vision for the Future

The insurance industry presents complexities and challenges for businesses that rely on good risk management to manage their operations. As Oliver Hahn rose up the ranks of mobility startups, he experienced these difficulties first-hand. Seeing the potential for captive insurance to transform how businesses operate, he was inspired to establish a company that would make captive insurance more available to these aspiring businesses.

With the founding of Peak Insurance, Hahn has a vision for the insurance industry's future. He plans to use Peak's long-term potential to change how businesses think about and engage with insurance. Follow Oliver Hahn's LinkedIn page to find out more about his work.

With ingenuity and leadership, the challenges of the insurance industry can be overcome.