Sedgwick has acquired the remaining minority interest in Dé Letselschade Hulpdienst (LSHD) from Raasveld Holding, taking full ownership of the Dutch personal injury assistance specialist after more than a decade as a joint venture.
The move is expected to deepen Sedgwick’s presence in the Netherlands and targets what the firm sees as a critical gap in the early stages of the claims and recovery process.
Established in 2016, LSHD provides first-line assistance to injured parties immediately following an accident and co-ordinates a broad range of support services in the weeks before formal rehabilitation begins. Its offering includes transportation, at-home medical and domestic assistance, pet care and liaison with other professionals involved in the recovery pathway.
“Over the past 10 years, LSHD has built a strong foundation and a highly effective model,” said Jeroen Fröhlich, CEO. “We’ve greatly valued our partnership with Raasveld, and the role they have played in building that success, and this next step will allow us to continue to prioritise that momentum as we invest in technology, talent, and sales to support expansion and accelerate growth in the Dutch market.”
The deal comes against a backdrop of rising bodily injury costs in the Netherlands and growing pressure to improve customer outcomes while keeping claims inflation in check.
Earlier, more structured intervention is seen by many market participants as a way to support better recovery, reduce the likelihood of disputes and bring more predictability to ultimate claim costs.
Full ownership gives Sedgwick greater flexibility to integrate LSHD’s services into its wider casualty and motor propositions for insurers, employers and self-insureds.
Sedgwick has been expanding its European footprint in recent years, building out loss adjusting and third-party administration capabilities across major markets, including the Netherlands, where it already handles a range of property, liability and bodily injury claims. Globally, the firm manages millions of claims a year and has fiduciary responsibility for tens of billions of dollars in claim payments, giving it scale to roll out new service models across multiple territories.
The transaction also aligns with Sedgwick’s broader strategy of investing in specialist and complex claims platforms, including recent investments in London market and European operations. For Dutch insurers, the combination of Sedgwick’s scale with LSHD’s early-stage support model will be watched closely as they look to manage bodily injury inflation, shorten claim durations and respond to closer scrutiny of how injured parties are treated throughout the claims process.
Looking ahead, Sedgwick plans to use its global capabilities to further invest in LSHD’s technology, talent and sales, with a view to embedding early intervention more firmly into bodily injury claims handling in the Dutch market.
