“Digitalisation is offering us tremendous potential in Austria”

Our colleague Melinda Vida works at ERGO Austria in Vienna in the area of digital transformation and innovation management. She introduces us to the Austrian insurance market in an interview. Especially how customers in the Alpine republic are already living digitally – and the digital solutions and offerings that ERGO is using to make life easier for customers and employees.

Hi Melina, please start by telling us something about ERGO Austria: How are you structured?

With pleasure: We’ve only been operating under the ERGO brand since 2012, but we emerged from the union of VICTORIA-Volksbanken Versicherung and Bank Austria Versicherung. Thanks to our predecessor companies, we have deep roots and long-standing partnerships in the country, and we have been writing insurance business in Austria now for more than 100 years.

As a composite insurer, we have featured life, property and casualty insurance products in our portfolio for many decades. We expanded our offering in 2021 to include specific niche coverage in the area of health insurance. And the integration of D.A.S. Rechtsschutz AG at the end of August 2023 and is continuation as an ERGO product brand added a comprehensive legal expenses insurance offering to our portfolio.

What are your product lines, and what are your sales channels?

We offer our customers this comprehensive, market-based portfolio of product solutions and services, which is aligned with customer needs, in close cooperation with a variety of partners. Our sales and cooperation partners are Bank Austria/UniCredit, the cooperative banks, ERGO Vorsorgemanagement GmbH, our own field sales organisation, direct and online sales, as well as affiliated brokers and agents.

We are fully aware of our local responsibilities: we defined our understanding of sustainability through long-term value added for our customers, partners, shareholders and employees. We also made a voluntary commitment at a very early stage to assume responsibility for environmental aspects. And corporate responsibility is a living, integral element of our corporate strategy.