Meeting someone for the first time can be a rollercoaster. You're excited, but nervous, doing your best to be interesting and confident, all the while remaining cautious, observant and trying to form your own opinion of the other person. That's a lot of pressure.
But some meetings are easier than others, especially if you know where you stand.
We are Balcia – an insurance company for the digital age. Questioning limits and sharing our values with like-minded people is what it's all about. What's more, we don't pretend to know what people need. Instead, we're here to support everyone's ambition and are eager to have you share it with us!
This blog is a safe space for you to learn a little more about our team. Here we'll share our vision, goals and accomplishments, hoping to make you – our future employee – feel like part of the Balcia family, even before you get here. Sounds like a plan? Keep on reading!
Not your usual insurance company
It's no surprise that most people out there consider the insurance business stale, boring and even gray, if pictured as an office environment. In other words, not the kind of place a youthful, dynamic and aspirational person would imagine themselves in. And while in most cases you'd be right, we're here to say that Balcia challenges each and every one of these stereotypes.
Let us start with an example. We like to think of ourselves as something combining the mainstream and the new, the complicated and the straight-forward, a start-up environment and a well-seasoned business.
While insurance is a regulated field and does require a certain level of legal and contractual certainty to everyone involved, we truly believe that it doesn't have to be complicated. We are an insurance company whose main goal is to make both insurance purchasing and claim submission as easy as possible. No hidden agenda or extensive fine-print only a lawyer would understand, minimum bureaucracy, allowing customers to interact with us exclusively online and most importantly – we let customers help define our company. You can only learn so much from a book, it is the client that tells you what they need and would benefit from.
How do we characterize Balcia?
An experienced leader with a start-up drive
Our journey is a fairly recent one. By bringing together experienced people with an entrepreneurial vision, we've managed to successfully enter several markets in recent years, and take insurance to a whole new level. Today Balcia products can be found in several countries around Europe – Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, France, Italy and, most recently, Estonia.
Would you believe that a dedicated team of driven minds made market entry into Estonia happen within only 90 days? Not that it's an Olympic achievement, but in the insurance world – it's quite up there, proving that a dynamic environment can set to question all limits and fulfill goals that much faster.
Since the beginning, our three main pillars have remained the same:
- An entrepreneurial spirit that drives us to make fast decisions;
- Interdependent work that allows everyone to pitch in;
- Growth. We never stop or settle, there's always room for improvement and we strive to achieve it.
Never judges a book by it's cover
Across all of our branches, we're happy to say we employ over 280 of the best and brightest minds out there. We're even more proud to say that the majority (57% to be exact) of them are women, who have over the years proven themselves to be the superior candidate for a given position, including our Board, in which an equal number of men and women are represented. What are we trying to say here? Simply that it is up to you and you alone to show us what you're capable of!
Has a mind for innovations
As already mentioned, creativity and innovation is what fuels us. We strive to stand out and offer our customers the best experience available. Our most recent project has resulted in a unique mobile app, available both in AppStore and GooglePlay, allowing users to purchase insurance subscriptions and apply for claims with just a few steps.
Having launched the app earlier this year, this is only the beginning. We have aspirations to introduce different gamification sequences, exclusive deals with our partners, a more technologically advanced fast track approach to claim review, with the help of AI, and more! The sky is the limit!
Open to collaborations and exciting experiences
Finally, friendships. Equally important within and outside of the Balcia family. As a group of fun-loving people, we continuously try to make each day a bit more exciting for our customers. From collaborations with musicians such as Brainstorm and Gacho to supporting sporting and educational events, such as our hockey and bobsleigh teams, Fizmix, Riga Puzzle Day and many more. We're always up for making new friends and supporting each other in our endeavors!
What to expect from our blog?
While trying to give you a brief overview of who we are, truthfully, we've barely scratched the surface. But isn't that how first meetings usually go? That's why we hope to give you a greater insight into who we are and what we can offer in our upcoming blog posts. Not only that – we also plan on sharing employee experiences and client success stories, as well as providing more general and insightful information about positive working environments, careers and the insurance industry.
So make sure to stay tuned!
Ready to work in insurance? Fantastic!
We're constantly looking for hard-working, passionate and ambitious people to join our creative team. And while we're eager to receive your resume, we believe in being effective and not making you jump through hoops just to find out it's not a match. This is why we're offering all candidates a chance to have a quick 15-minute call with our HR team even before sending in an official application! Just head to the vacancy page and schedule a call for a time that's convenient for you!
And last, but not least – we always like to end our meetings on a positive note. So before you go, we invite you to take a fun test and see which of our subscriptions describes you best. We're not fortune tellers, but can appreciate a good joke, even if it's on us. ;)
