Ideas shape the future

There is no way around innovation to meet future challenges. Your bold ideas may be an answer. We have what it takes to transform them into pioneering business models. Join our ecosystem!

Give-a-Breath Challenge

In the face of the corona pandemic Munich Re and Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft have launched a challenge for the purpose of pooling the most capable minds in order to identify solutions for decentralised emergency ventilation.

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Together we can meet future challenges

Economies and societies are constantly changing, new technologies and risks evolve. This is where unexpected, new opportunities arise. We seek ideas that help to shape emerging industries and markets, meet new demands and create tangible business value, in insurance and beyond.

Our playing fields

Technologies offer great opportunities, for example to secure food and energy supplies or increase efficiency and flexibility of industrial production. On the other hand, they involve risks, like cyber or privacy risks, which need to be controlled and mitigated. Have a look at the playing fields we focus on to develop innovative solutions aimed at solving fundamental problems.

Climate, energy and agricultural technology

We go for business models that protect our climate, safeguard our future food supply or ensure sustainable power supply.
Let’s develop carbon credit markets to support carbon neutrality or find new solutions to secure power supply for people and industries.

Cyber

Cyber threats are one of the biggest risks in a more and more digitised world – for people, public entities and companies alike. Let’s build technology-enabled solutions to keep infrastructure up and hackers down.

Industry platforms

Value creation is increasingly shifting to data-driven services. Industry platforms play an important role in orchestration of data and prediction of outcomes. They can be levers for financial solutions or new business models.

Privacy-enhancing technologies

Data has become the new currency, as analysing data gives businesses a leading edge – but only if confidentiality and privacy are ensured. We look for technologies that enable or improve this.

Disrupting insurance

What’s the future of insurance when technologies offer new options? When the nature of risk is changing? When customers expect a better experience? Let’s disrupt insurance together.

Resilience

Natural disasters endanger people’s lives and societies’ prosperity. Bring in your ideas to help us make people, communities and business more resilient.

Further playing fields

Mobility

The world is in the midst of major shifts in mobility. We want to create the innovations that reduce risk and maximise the societal potential of these emerging technologies. Join us!

Digitally augmented underwriting and claims management

The (re)insurance value chain needs a revamp to better meet changing clients’ needs. Bring in your ideas to create data-driven automated solutions for underwriting and claims management.

Digital cooperation models

Let’s develop fully digital and easily accessible cooperation models with diverse partners to build new insurance solutions – meeting customers’ growing demand for flexible products, immediate fulfilment and coverage.

What to expect from us

We offer co-innovation opportunities for entrepreneurs, start-ups and corporate partners to team up diverse competencies and different perspectives. We provide expertise in many areas as well as access to global markets, clients and partners. Furthermore, you can benefit from our global innovation infrastructure and funding. Together we explore promising opportunities and develop new business models in evolving playing fields – way beyond insurance. Reach out for new horizons with us!

No matter what, we’ve got an expert

Munich Re offers an enormous amount of deep expertise on a broad range of topics, from AI and climate to engineering and space. For 140 years we have been active in the risk business. We insure not only large construction projects and satellite launches, but also cyber risks and algorithms. To be able to offer risk solutions in all areas of life and the economy, we employ scientists from many fields, medical doctors, engineers, pilots and sea captains, to name just a few. Only with the expertise of these specialists can we assess some of the highest, often technological risks for very precious assets. Only if we understand every single detail of the business and technologies, are we able to insure them. We digest and make sense of huge amounts of data to assess the probability and the amount of financial losses as a result of earthquakes, car crashes or business interruption. You see, imagining and anticipating the future has always been in our DNA. Today, digitalisation supports and speeds up these processes and opens up new horizons. Data scientists, software architects and our entire digital infrastructure including our Data Hunting Unit help us to get the most out of new technological possibilities.

Access to global markets, partners and clients

Munich Re is active globally and maintains client relations with thousands of companies, not only from the insurance industry but from many different economic sectors. We are the front runners of innovation in our core business, but reach out far beyond that. In the last few years we have built up an entire innovation ecosystem to bring together ideas and players from various spheres. As the frontiers between industries are becoming increasingly blurred, no company can achieve groundbreaking innovation on its own. Become part of our huge ecosystem that helps match your ideas with the needs of companies and their clients!

Proven end-to-end innovation infrastructure

We offer you access to a trusted network of internal and external experts and advisors. Munich Re’s dedicated Corporate Innovation Unit ideates, develops and funds new business models that create tangible business value. We operate innovation labs all around the globe, providing entrepreneurs and innovation drivers with an environment for fast execution and testing of ideas. Furthermore, our global Innovation Scouts are unearthing new trends and finding the right partners to take the journey together.

We connect people and ideas

What will be next? By networking, listening and understanding, we sense technology trends and create new impulses. By connecting people and ideas, we help to create new business models.

Philipp von der Schulenburg

Head of Scouting Silicon Valley

We give innovation the necessary space

Munich Re operates four labs around the globe: THE LAB Munich, THE LAB Beijing, the US Incubator and the ERGO LAB in Berlin. Apart from being physical locations, they are also global homes for innovators − for intrapreneurs as well as entrepreneurs − and their ideas. Here they find the necessary empowerment to transform their promising concepts into strong ventures. Teams developing their ideas in THE LABs can look forward to a state-of-the-art programme throughout the innovation process, combining tools, methodologies and access to service providers and entrepreneurial advisers. Additionally, we have a comprehensive network of inspiring partners for business model design as well as methodologies, including Scrum, Design Thinking, Lean Start-up, Prototyping, and many more. Give it a try!

Become part of the ecosystem

Innovating with Munich Re also means getting access to our long-standing ecosystem of strong innovation partners, such as Plug and Play Tech Center from the Silicon Valley or the DIA (Digital Insurance Agenda) from Amsterdam. We are also a founding member and Chair of the InsurTech Hub Munich, a unique platform set up by global insurance companies to promote co-creation with start-ups, investors and universities. In addition, InsurTech’s strategic partners in tech (such as Microsoft or NTT Data), consulting (PWC) and healthcare (Roche), bring their know-how and capabilities and make the ecosystem thrive.

Funding isn’t everything, but it helps

Munich Re supports entrepreneurs’ innovation initiatives and our partners’ co-innovations that fit our strategic playing fields and that are designed to create new business with a distinct revenue stream. We support initiatives along the entire innovation journey from ideation and incubation to acceleration.

In welcoming the recommendations of the lean start-up philosophy, funding will be given in smaller sums and more frequently, subject to steering based on an objectives and key results (OKR) framework. This approach will allow teams to focus better on deliverables and milestones that need to be accomplished if the project is to move to the next stage.

In addition to funding innovation projects, our corporate venture capital arm, Munich Re Ventures also works closely with the Munich Re Group businesses across the globe to fund and partner with the best emerging companies that are developing new technologies and business models – and risks – to transform tomorrow’s world.

© Munich Re

Together with you, we explore new opportunities and share risk and success along the whole journey.

Tom Van den Brulle

Global Head of Innovation

Let’s take the journey together

Clear procedure and proven methods on the one hand and creative ideation and innovation activities on the other hand are not a contradiction. They help innovation drivers to focus on their initiative and ultimately achieve better and more sustainable business models.