In a nutshell
- Ten years ago, JC and I started Qover with a simple idea: build the Stripe of insurance. What kept us going wasn't a perfect plan, but naivety, energy and refusing to accept that things couldn't change.
- The most important lesson I learned from building an insurtech? Stay naive. Without that, you won't dare to open every door or attempt the impossible.
- Our horizontal play – multi-country, multi-product, multi-industry from day one – was the harder path, but it created a massive moat that's unique in the market today.
- The next 10 years are about setting a new standard: maximum loss ratio and best-in-class service levels, proving you can deliver exceptional customer value while building a thriving, sustainable business.
Quentin Colmant is the CEO of Qover, which he co-founded alongside Jean-Charles Velge in 2016. Prior to launching the company, he had a successful career in the insurance industry, holding a series of top management positions at Allianz Benelux in both general and life insurance.
Quentin has an MBA and two Master's degrees: a Master's in Engineering Science & Applied Mathematics and a Master's in Finance.
Ten years.
It's hard to believe it's been a decade since JC (my co-founder Jean-Charles Velge) and I started this journey. In all honesty, I didn't really understand what we were building back then. I knew we wanted to fix something broken in insurance, but the path from 'let's build the Stripe of insurance' to where we are today wasn't exactly mapped out.
Looking back now, I can see what kept us going wasn't a perfect plan. It was naivety, energy and flat-out refusing to accept that things couldn't change.
The power of being naive as an entrepreneur
In 2016, I was at Allianz, deep in the traditional insurance world. JC was in Hong Kong, watching technology disrupt entire industries at lightning speed. I'd just become a beta tester for a young payment company called Stripe, and I remember thinking: could we do this for insurance?
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It was a bold question for two people with zero funding, zero infrastructure and zero proof the market even wanted what we were imagining. But here's what I’ve learned about entrepreneurship: you have to be naive to start. If you truly understood how hard it would be, you'd never begin.
That naivety is your wild card. It lets you knock on doors you have no business knocking on, pitch to companies way out of your league and hype yourself up with Eminem before walking into a meeting like you belong there.
Yes, JC and I really did that. We'd play 'Lose Yourself' right before big meetings, dancing on the pavement to get our energy up. It worked. And it’s still the unofficial Qover hype song to this day.
That kind of energy – refusing to take ourselves too seriously while taking our mission extremely seriously – became part of our DNA as a company.
I never once asked myself if we would fail. The question was always: what's the next important thing to build?
The hardest decision we made – and why it was right
Early on, we had to decide: do we go narrow and deep, or wide and horizontal?
Most people told us to focus on one country or one product. Build the best solution for a specific niche, dominate it, then expand. It's sensible advice, and if I started another company tomorrow, I'd probably follow it.
Spoiler alert: we didn't do that.
We bet on a horizontal play from day one: multi-country, multi-product, multi-industry. I won’t lie – it was brutal. It required massive investment, deep expertise across different markets and the ability to navigate entirely different regulatory environments simultaneously. But that bet is also why we're still here.
Today, Qover is the only player with a true pan-European platform that works across every country, every risk carrier, every insurance product and every distribution partner. That's a massive moat. And it's exactly what our partners need when they want to embed insurance at scale.
Was it a harder path? Absolutely. But I know it was the right one.
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What I'm most proud of – and it's not the tech
If you ask me what I'm most proud of after 10 years, it's not the platform or business metrics.
It's the people.
When you start a company, you set the vision and the direction. But executing on that is all them. What I've witnessed at Qover over the past decade is a level of initiative, ownership and creativity that still surprises me. Every day, I discover something new the team has built – something I never would've thought of or something better than what I could've imagined.
That creative energy is what's powered our growth. It wasn't one big partnership that made Qover. It was the accumulation of them, one after another.
Immoweb was our first iconic deal – a big, recognisable brand in Belgium that belonged to Axel Springer. That opened doors. Then came Deliveroo, first in Belgium, then across Europe. Then Revolut. Then more and more. Today we have over 400 partnerships, and each one taught us something new.
But what made those partnerships work wasn't just our technology. It was the people behind it – the team members who took ownership, who built and delivered solutions I never could have imagined and who turned our platform into something far greater than JC and I originally envisioned.
Qover isn't our baby anymore as founders. It's the qollective creation of everyone who's taken ownership of this journey.
So how did we get such great people? Someone once asked me where I hire people from, and I said: 'From your traditional bank.' Because we've created an environment where people can flourish, take risks, fail, learn and grow. We've built a culture where people are comfortable being unqomfortable, and it’s something I look for when we hire.
In a scale-up, there are no guarantees of stability. It’s chaos a lot of the time. But there's also opportunity, qonnection and the chance to build something that's never been done before.
The evolution of embedded insurance and the global safety net
Ten years ago, embedded insurance was seen as affinity distribution – an upsell, a way to generate additional revenue, often tied to high commissions that didn't create value for the end user.
Today, embedded insurance is about differentiation. It's about leading brands asking: how can insurance enhance my core value proposition? How can it give my customers peace of mind, create a safety net or drive loyalty?
Some of our partners tell us they don't embed insurance to make extra money. They do it to give their customers peace of mind. That shift – from revenue tool to value driver – is everything.
I'm a big believer in the global safety net – a world where insurance works like social security on steroids, where everyone is protected no matter what happens. We can’t deny the growing insurance gap – coverage isn't always easy to access, affordability is a challenge, trust in insurers is low and financial literacy around insurance is poor.
But embedded insurance can close that gap. By meeting people where they are, at the moment of need, with products that make sense in context, we can make insurance more accessible, more affordable and more trusted.
At Qover, we're taking real steps towards this vision. We pay claims within days instead of weeks or months. We maximise loss ratio – ensuring that when we collect €100 in premiums, as much as possible goes back to customers, not to expenses or excessive commissions. We care about service quality, not just profitability.
But we're not satisfied. The next step is to set a new industry standard: maximum loss ratio and best-in-class service-level agreements. Because creating value for customers isn't just about how much you pay. It's about how fast you pay, how clearly you communicate and how much you care.
What I'd tell my 2016 self
People love to ask if I could go back, what would I change. My honest answer is: nothing.
I wouldn't take the time machine even if you offered it to me. Life is fragile. The butterfly effect is real. Change one small thing and maybe everything collapses; maybe the future is totally different.
But if I had to give my 2016 self one piece of advice, it would be this: keep being naive. Keep believing you can make it happen and that there are no limits.
To make the impossible possible, you first have to believe that you can. And if you don't believe it, you'll never change anything.
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The next 10 years: AI, embedded insurance and the future of Qover
In 2026, Qover is doing better than I could’ve ever imagined. So what does Qover look like in 2036?
I see exponential growth. I see us as one of the major players in the industry – not just in insurtech, but in insurance, full stop. I see us continuing to build the global safety net, making insurance more accessible, more transparent and more human.
And I see us changing the industry standard even more than we already have. I want Qover to prove that you can maximise loss ratio, deliver exceptional service and still build a thriving, sustainable business.
Technology will, of course, play a huge role in that vision. AI isn't just a productivity tool for us – it's a fundamental transformation of how insurance works. In insurance, the expense ratio can be as high as 30% of revenue, driven by manual processes and administrative work. The result is slow service, high premiums and frustrated customers.
But AI is changing that. It can enrich data, automate workflows and provide faster, more accurate answers to customers while dramatically reducing costs. Imagine an expense ratio close to zero. Imagine claims paid within 24 hours as standard. Imagine premiums dropping because the cost to serve has plummeted. That's the future we're building.
At the end of the day, insurance is about caring and protecting people. And if we can't get back to that core purpose, we've lost the plot.
Ten years in, I'm more energised than ever. I’m convinced that the hardest part is behind us and the best part is still ahead.
Let's build the next decade together.
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