Insurance doesn’t lack innovation. It lacks translation. In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Sebastian Pitzler, former Managing Director of InsurLab Germany, to unpack how one ecosystem helped shift Germany’s insurance market from guarded silos to collaborative innovation. Five to six years ago, partnering a startup with an incumbent insurer in Germany was painfully complex. Procurement processes stalled contracts. IT departments prioritized proprietary systems. Risk avoidance overshadowed experimentation. Yet the market evolved. First came standard enterprise software adoption. Then came openness to external collaboration. Today, insurers recognize startups as strategic partners — not fringe disruptors. Sebastian experienced this shift firsthand. After leading ERGO’s Digital Lab in Berlin, he moved to the ecosystem side, helping scale InsurLab Germany into a powerful connector of insurers, startups, consultants, IT providers, and universities. The results are tangible. In just six months, InsurLab supported 15 startups, activated 60 mentors, and facilitated more than 40 collaborative projects — some already live in market. Structured ecosystem design turned intention into execution. COVID accelerated the realization: startups could solve internal IT bottlenecks faster than enterprise teams alone. But ecosystem building requires more than matchmaking. Corporations want innovation — without risk. Startups want speed — without bureaucracy. They often speak different languages. InsurLab positioned itself as a translator, bridging expectations and aligning incentives. Sebastian emphasizes that digitalisation is not just about technology stacks. It’s about mindset shifts: Agility over hierarchy Customer-centricity over process rigidity Collaboration over isolation The creation of InsureNXT, a cross-industry innovation conference, reinforced this philosophy. Insurance innovation cannot happen in isolation. It must connect with automotive, aviation, IoT, and academic research. Partnerships with brands like Garmin, Volvo, and Lufthansa Systems demonstrate how ecosystems expand opportunity. This episode is essential listening for: Insurance executives building innovation labs Ecosystem architects designing startup–corporate bridges Procurement leaders modernizing partnership frameworks Founders entering regulated markets Because in today’s platform economy, competitive advantage doesn’t come from owning everything. It comes from connecting intelligently. The insurers that thrive won’t be those with the biggest IT budgets. They’ll be the ones with the strongest networks. And in an ecosystem economy, collaboration is no longer optional. It’s infrastructure.