The story of Credit Life
A little journey through our history.
The beginnings of
payment protection insurance
Credit Life's roots go back to 1979 – to the acquisition of a majority stake in Ontos Restschuld-Lebensversicherungs AG, based in Cologne, by the RheinLand Versicherungs AG. This year marks the start of the distribution of payment protection insurance – the core business of today's Credit Life – in the RheinLand Group.
Changes in the market
2002: the focus up to now has been on covering the risks of death, accidental death and disability. But from this year on we expend the insurance portfolio to include risks such as unemployment, serious illnessand permanent disability. In addition to consumer or motor vehicle loans, consumers now use the protection more frequently in the course of real estate financing or credit cards.
The independent company
As part of the expansion of the payment protection credit business and the steady gain in market shares, the independent payment protection insurer Credit Life International N.V., based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, is founded in 2002. That is how the brand name Credit Life International comes to be.
Pioneer in unisex tariffs
The company relocates its headquarters and production facilities to Venlo in the Netherlands in 2006.
Strengthening of sales structures
From 2013 on the German and international payment protection insurance business is beingconducted from Neuss. We take the opportunity to restructure the responsibilities of the RheinLand Group: Credit Life AG bundles the term life and disability supplementary insurances as well as the payment protection insurance business for optimum product design.
Own branches abroad
To strengthen international sales, the company establishes its own branches in the Netherlands (2013) and in Italy (2016). We are even expanding our already strong ties to the Netherlands by taking over the local Callas Group. This enterprise, specializing in the administration and sale of insurance products, has already been an important partner in the neighbouring country – the close cooperation is to be further strengthened by the takeover.
Award-winning services
Visible signs of our customer orientation are our numerous awards, in particular the Golden Bull 2017 for the pension product of the year. Furthermore, we are delighted about having been given top ratings in recent years from magazines such as Finanztest and €uro, the German Institute for Service Quality and also from the analysis specialists of MoneyView or the Dutch Consumentenbond.