Company Anniversary: 50 years of protecting people abroad

02.06.2009

Small office, big ideas: It was the 1950s when Dr. Siegfried Walter started taking care of foreign graduates in Germany on behalf of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). That’s when he noticed that these graduates had no access to appropriate insurance in Germany. In those days, as today, visitors from abroad were not covered by the insurance policy they had purchased at home. They also had no possibility to purchase insurance cover within the German compulsory health insurance scheme.

In an improvised office in his small flat, Siegfried Walter started to close that gap. He registered a business and, together with an insurance company, developed the so-called "world policy" for foreign visitors in Germany. In the following years, he also made a name in providing insurance to au pairs. The dynamics and steady growth of global cultural exchange required a continuing expansion of business areas and Dr. Walter GmbH went from specialist to expert. Today, the company develops and procures insurance policies for all kinds of stays abroad. Its clients are, for example, high school students who spend a year abroad, au pairs from and in Germany, students who spend a semester or internship abroad, international companies that send employees to other countries, development workers and volunteers who work in conflict areas and foreign visitors who study and work in Germany. For this purpose, Dr. Walter GmbH, known far beyond the travel insurance business for its experience and expertise, works together with more than 40 different insurance companies.
In 1998, the website www.reiseversicherung.com went online and became one of the first websites for clients to directly purchase insurance online. In its anniversary year, the insurance broker presents its new online booking tool for the "employee abroad" so that companies need only a few clicks to insure their employees from abroad and while they are abroad (www.mia-versicherung.de).

Growing business resulted in a steady increase in the number of employees and the company’s registered office in Neunkirchen-Wolperath was gradually enlarged. Bursting at the seams, the company could finally inaugurate its new corporate headquarters in 2006. The new headquarters is located in a modern office building in the Neunkirchen business park

In June 2009, Dr. Walter GmbH celebrates its 50th anniversary and thereby a 50-year success story. Dr. Walter GmbH turned from a one-man operation to one of Germany’s leading experts in insuring private and business travel as well as stays abroad, with a present staff of 50 employees.  

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