ERGO and CamCom Technologies roll out an AI-based solution for visual inspections

ERGO Group AG and CamCom Technologies have entered into a strategic partnership. As a result of this cooperation, the scale-up from Bengaluru (also called Bangalore) in India will act as the main technological supplier for ERGO Group AG’s AI-supported visual inspections in Europe.

CamCom specialises in identifying and assessing defects, damage and distortions on almost all types of surfaces. For this, the company’s proprietary Large Vision Model (LVM) was trained on datasets with over 450 million customer-validated images to accurately recognise and contextualise photo and video material.

The cooperation entered into will kick off in the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, where ERGO and CamCom have now rolled out the cross-sector pre-inspection solution in the motor and homeowners’ insurance classes of business. In future, potential ERGO customers intending to take out insurance will thus be able to take photos of their vehicle or dwelling and building with their smartphone camera and submit them directly via the CamCom web app. This will allow any existing damage to be documented, so that it can be taken into account and excluded in the event of a subsequent claim. Here, CamCom’s AI-based solution automatically recognises the position, nature and severity of damage to vehicles, or whether the pictures submitted are authentic images.

There are also plans for a phased introduction of CamCom’s technology in the motor and homeowners’ insurance classes of business in other European markets in which ERGO operates.

It is ERGO’s ambition to be the digital leader in the insurance industry – both in Germany and in its international core markets.

Cooperation with start-ups and scale-ups is a key component of this. To date, ERGO has successfully operationalised more than 80 national and international start-up and scale-up collaborations in the Group. The partnerships cover the entire value chain for an insurer, from underwriting to sales through to customer service.

In the past year, ERGO has intensified its commitment in this area by establishing the “ERGO ScaleHub”, a joint initiative with the state capital Düsseldorf and the community space TechHub.K67. Here, scale-ups from the specific areas of health, finance and insurance are to be supported at the Düsseldorf location.

CamCom is one of the first members of the scale-up programme. The company’s technology is already in use at some of the biggest insurers in India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, including at HDFC ERGO, ERGO’s Indian joint venture, which has been working successfully with scale-ups for more than six years.