ERGO, the primary insurance arm of reinsurance giant Munich Re, has signed a “strategic partnership agreement for insurance business” with innovative, China-based automobile manufacturer, Great Wall Motors.
The agreement was completed by ERGO board members Markus Rieß and Karsten Crede, and is embedded in the organisational structure of ERGO China, although it will be both directed and operated by ERGO Mobility Solutions.
ERGO’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Rieß, commented: “With this agreement, we are actively maintaining our course of growth. Together with Great Wall Motors we aim to create a leading provider of technology and data-driven product and service solutions in the mobility ecosystem. This will further strengthen ERGO’s presence in China, a strategically important growth market.”
The insurer also plans to offer its solutions to Great Wall Motors directly, including industrial products for factories, commercial insurance for its traders, and private insurance solutions for its 70,000 staff.
Crede, Head of ERGO Mobility Solutions and member of the Board of Management of Digital Ventures AG, explained in a recent interview that China has always been one of the core automotive markets that the firm definitely wants to participate in.
“You only have to think of the 22 million cars that were registered last year alone in China. In Germany that figure was barely 3.3 million, and declining.
“But even without this enormous potential for revenue, our cooperation with Great Wall Motors, which follows our alliances with Ford, Volvo, BMW and NRW-Garage in Germany, as well as our investments in innovative start-ups such as Fair and Ridecell in the US, is a next logical step for ERGO Mobility Solutions.”
Discussing the agreed goal of the new partnership, Crede added: “Our common goal is to create a leading provider of technology-driven and data-driven product and service solutions in the mobility ecosystem for the entire Chinese market. Technology, data management and end-to-end digital solutions will form the basis of this collaboration.
“Overall, the integrated business model strengthens the distribution and partner network of both Great Wall Motors and ERGO China. We of course had a valuable reference from our cooperation with NRW-Garage. We can also add even more expertise to our cooperation talks thanks to our ability to interlock with Munich Re. I am of course talking about the specialist knowledge of our colleagues in Munich, for example with regard to industrial insurance for our new partner’s factories.
“As you can see, the cooperation with Great Wall Motors is the logical next step in our aim to create a comprehensive “win-win” agreement for providers of primary insurance, reinsurance and mobility.”
