ERGO and Demodern launch first real-time based VR insurance advisory app

“ERGO VR Experience” gives users an immersive experience of insurance products for the very first time.

Live advice in virtual space: users can now also have an immersive conversation about travel insurance from home.
Image: ERGO/Demodern

ERGO has joined forces with the Hamburg- and Cologne-based agency for creative technologies Demodern to launch the first-ever virtual insurance advisory app featuring a real-time dialogue function. For the very first time, ERGOs innovation project “ERGO VR Experience” allows customers to immerse themselves in, and receive live advice on, a virtual insurance scenario. Prospective customers use the VR app and headset to meet an ERGO advisor who guides them through a chosen setting. The first available use case involves a 3D mountain environment that is used to provide customers with immersive advice on the “travel health insurance” package. The advisor explains and visualises examples of potential risks associated with hiking in the mountains that need to be insured. Customers can also use the session to ask further questions on insurance products. The pilot project was implemented by Demodern, an expert in creative technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and metaverse solutions. Interested parties will receive the download link to the app in Metas Quest Store after successfully booking an appointment. Appointments can now be booked free of charge on the ERGO website. Customer need their own VR glasses from Meta to be able to take part in the session.

“The ‘ERGO VR Experience’ allows us to provide an immersive insurance experience for the very first time. A topic that used to be more abstract and theoretical is now turned into something vivid, easy-to-understand and tangible”, says Mark Klein, Chief Digital Officer at ERGO Group AG and CEO of ERGO Digital Ventures AG. “Here at ERGO, we are convinced that this form of virtual dialogue creates real added value for our customers and sales partners, making it a fantastic add-on to conventional advisory methods. It also marks a key further step on our journey towards the metaverse.”

“ERGO’s VR application offers an innovative service involving personal advice provided in a virtual arena. Immersive storytelling and infotainment take the quality of advice to a whole new level”, says Alexander El-Meligi, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Demodern. “Creative mixed-reality technologies offer huge business potential – so we are all the more delighted to see a driver of innovation like ERGO take this step.”

For ERGO, the app is another part in its already successfully established omni-channel strategy. Using mixed-reality technologies, the app aims, in general, to pilot a new and innovative advisory service and establish it in the long term. In case of success, it is also planned that the app will be available to ERGO's sales partners too, so that they can offer it as a supplement to their classic advisory services.

As a result, in addition to the current mountain scenario, further use cases, for example for city breaks, skiing or beach holidays. are already being planned. The app is also to be gradually equipped with further visual assets, i.e. insurance components such as travel cancellation or baggage insurance.

This marks the first collaboration project between ERGO and Demodern. The joint project was launched in October 2022.

Interested parties who would like to test the app themselves will have the opportunity to do so during June 12th and 15th. Till then ERGO will have a booth at Düsseldorf Airport, Terminal A. The app can be tested on working days between 9 am and 4 pm.