Ergo Pro

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ERGO Pro logo

Ergo Pro (spelling ERGO Pro) is a sales organization of Ergo Beratung und Vertrieb AG, which in turn belongs to Ergo Group AG.

Ergo Beratung und Vertrieb AG is registered as an insurance agent with the Düsseldorf Chamber of Commerce and Industry in accordance with the EU Insurance Brokerage Directive 2002/92 / EC .

Name and story

Organizational and Sales Directors
1973–1976: Werner Kunkler
1976–1987: Hagen Ulrich Hahn
1987–1990: Herbert Rothfuß
1990-1994: Hartmut Paul
1994–1996: Willi Uszko
1997–1998: Dietmar Schott
1999–2007: Kai Lange
2007–2012: Ludger Griese
2012–2016: Rudi Ryckaert
2016–: Marc Jacobi

Ergo Pro was founded in 1973 as HMI-Organization (HMI) and initially only sold unit-linked life insurance as an investment and tax-saving model. Werner Kunkler became the first director of HMI on March 22, 1973. In 1984 agency sales were founded in order to be able to provide all-round support for new customers. Since July 1, 2010, HMI has been an independent trademark and sales organization of the Ergo Insurance Group.

On January 27, 2012 the name was changed to Ergo Pro (officially ERGO Pro ).

Sales model

The Ergo Pro was divided into two areas until December 31, 2016:

  • Structural sales
  • Agency sales

All Ergo Pro sales partners are exclusively independent commercial agents in accordance with Section 84 of the German Commercial Code . ERGO Pro agencies used to wear the Hamburg-Mannheimer brand on their offices, today they carry the ERGO brand .

The Ergo Pro structural sales focus on the acquisition of new customers and entrepreneurs. The focus of the Ergo Pro agency sales was the support of new and existing customers.

The agency sales were integrated into the Ergo sales of the AO (exclusive organization) on January 1st, 2017.

Structural sales / multi-level marketing

The brokerage service is provided by the ERGO Pro sales partner within what is known as a structured sales organization , i. This means that he is only remunerated proportionally to the commission generated . An ERGO Pro beginner therefore receives around a quarter of the commission for his placement. The organization distributes the majority of the remuneration to sales partners above the career level of the agent for motivational work according to a precisely defined career plan.

Intermediary

Legal status

The agents are exclusively independent one-company representatives without a power of attorney within the meaning of commercial agency law ( § 84 to § 92 HGB). The, as the commercially correct designation reads, requests for the submission of an offer (insurance applications) of the potential customers are offered by the agent of Ergo Pro. This passes it on to Ergo, where the insurance policy for the customer and thus the benefit commitment is usually issued.

In contrast, the company used to advertise publicly in employee recruiting with the franchising term, which suggested to potential employees independence in customer business that a single-company representative without a power of attorney would not have completely.

This franchise term stands in specialist circles for the independent takeover of a business concept to act in one's own name and for one's own account . However, the Ergo Pro brokers undertake to only advertise products from the Ergo Group on behalf of the insurer . However, the brokers are now given the opportunity to offer products from other insurance companies via a cooperation agreement.

From July 2010 football coach Jürgen Klopp advertised as an ambassador for the HMI organization and should also support the recruitment of new HMI sales partners in this context. A few days after the Budapest sex party affair became known, this contract was terminated.

qualification

In accordance with EU Directive 2002/92 / EC on insurance mediation and the recommendation for a resolution on the report of the Committee on Economics and Technology (9th Committee) on the revision of insurance brokerage law of October 25, 2006, it was prescribed from May 22, 2007 that insurance brokers should Have to prove a proficiency test for the offer of such services.

The training and further education, especially new employees of Ergo Pro, is mainly in the hands of the transferred agents and structural managers. There are also supraregional training blocks in which every new agent has to take part in order to be able to take his proficiency test. For this basic training , the new employee has a max. 6 months time. If the exam is not passed after this time, the employee contract will be canceled. After the proficiency test, there is further internal and, at the same time, external training. In addition, employees are obliged to attend a certain number of training seminars every 5 years to promote specialist knowledge, leadership skills and compliance guidelines.

Extract from the seminar series:

  • Sales promotion seminar
  • Recruiting seminar
  • Leadership seminars

liability

An insurance agent is the agent for the insurance company and is therefore also on the side of the insurance company in terms of liability and contract law. Because of the so-called eye-and-ear doctrine, mistakes made by the insurance agent are attributed to the insurance company and not to the intermediary ( Section 278 BGB ), which means that the intermediary, unlike a broker, does not need his own professional liability insurance ( financial loss liability insurance ) , even legally .

criticism

Depending on the career level, Ergo Pro sales partners sometimes earn a direct commission based on the sums of the contracts they broker. Employees in higher sales levels receive a proportionate commission of the sales of subordinate sellers. In April 2015, sales channel manager Andreas Lang spoke about realistic income opportunities in structured sales as such and at Ergo Pro.

Since the Ergo Pro agents are usually not trained insurance salesmen as lateral entrants and Germany was the only country in the EU that allowed insurance brokerage until 2007 without any proof of qualification, in the 30 years until the current regulation came into force Ergo Pro internally no such evidence is required from Ergo Pro agents either. A corresponding qualification as an insurance specialist BWV / IHK was only offered internally after a long period of work . However, this also applies to many other insurance companies and distribution systems.

Sex party affairs

In May 2011 it became known that the HMI organization, as Ergo Pro was previously called, had invited the 100 best sales employees and senior managers of the company to a sex party in Budapest as an incentive in 2007. The insurance company engaged both hostesses and prostitutes and marked the women with different armbands. The first to report about it was the Handelsblatt . The news attracted a lot of public attention, mainly due to the unfortunate timing of a major advertising campaign that started in 2010. Ergo stated that the participants had been informed that, as with every incentive trip, they had to state a pecuniary benefit in their tax returns.

Because of the scandal, Jürgen Klopp , the coach of Borussia Dortmund , suspended his advertising partner contract with Hamburg-Mannheimer. He had given motivational lectures for the HMI.

Ergo announced that the cost of the sex party in the amount of 83,000 euros had been claimed for tax purposes as business expenses (they reduce profit and tax burden). According to the documents, it was a seemingly normal event, and the costs were deducted as operating expenses. In total, the sex party had cost over 333,000 euros, including the 40,000–50,000 euros it contained for pimps and prostitutes from Ergo as company taxes .

In the course of the investigation, it became known that, according to witnesses, prostitutes had been hired as early as the 1970s as part of management seminars organized by the HMI organization on Lake Zurich. The costs were accounted for via the helicopter tours position .

In 2013, a participant of the above-mentioned Budapest trip and long-time sales representative for ERGO Pro (a so-called management representative see above) - Francisco Moraga - under the title Simply Only Truth, an experience description of his 20-year career in the organization According to Moraga, the organization management donated 5,000 to a party of high-ranking salespeople Euros for a collective brothel visit . Moraga also claims that the sales management offered a brothel visit at Ergo's expense in 2010 to motivate the managers of the Moraga structure from level 4. Instead, they had a trip to Jamaica to the swingers club hotel Hedonism-II approved for 25,000 euros by the responsible board member. Moraga reports that - when the Moraga structure was charged back with the 25,000 euros due to a corporate revision - the board member responsible for sales at the time compensated the structural manager (i.e. Moraga) with 12,500 euros in cash, about whose origins Ergo claimed to know nothing.

Company response

After the allegations became known, the company set up a task force to investigate the matter with more than 100 employees. Many of the incidents that were publicly criticized in the further course of the affair were brought to light by the Ergo corporate auditing department itself. Initially, they wanted to keep the audit reports under lock and key, but in 2012 the company published a website with the results of the investigation.

In 2011, a full-page apology advertisement was placed in five national daily newspapers. It promised measures to prevent such errors in the future. In fact, the internal compliance rules were in some cases significantly tightened as a result. The new incentive directive banned B. expressly the visit of "establishment with erotic or sexual entertainment."

The company also tried to sue managers involved in travel planning and organization for breach of trust. The prosecution later closed the case against payment of a fee.

literature

  • Francisco Moraga: Just the Truth: Sex, Party & Insurance; a successful ego trip . Mühlheim / Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-042244-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Imprint ERGO Group AG - Registration number according to § 34d GewO: D-FI7B-K4X9W-22. In: ergo.de. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Register of intermediaries: research. In: vermittlerregister.info. German Chamber of Commerce and Industry , accessed on March 8, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b c also board members of Hamburg-Mannheimer Versicherungs-AG
  4. ↑ ERGO Pro trademark register
  5. ↑ Hamburg-Mannheim sex scandal: Jürgen Klopp says "Bye, Mr. Kaiser" . ( handelsblatt.com [accessed January 18, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Bundestag printed paper No. 16/3162
  7. ↑ "Awesome fun": A lavish sex party at Ergo Insurance . ( handelsblatt.com [accessed January 18, 2018]).
  8. ↑ spiegel.de: The somewhat different insurance
  9. ↑ Insurance invited representatives to sex party
  10. ↑ In the Spiegel article it is said "the participants taxed exactly 3,046 euros as a monetary benefit" - it has not been proven whether everyone really did that.
  11. ↑ spiegel.de: May 24, 2011
  12. ^ L. Wiegelmann: Business expenses: Sex parties are at the expense of the taxpayer . In: THE WORLD . May 29, 2011 ( welt.de [accessed January 18, 2018]).
  13. ↑ Sex orgy at the taxpayer's expense . In: sueddeutsche.de . 2011, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on January 18, 2018]).
  14. ↑ Hamburg-Mannheimer: Insurance set sex party off tax . faz.net. May 29, 2011. Retrieved June 2, 2011.
  15. ↑ Technical report of the corporate auditing department on the examination of the HMI competition trip Budapest 2007, pp. 26, 28 and 37
  16. ↑ Stern.de: Orgy with 20 prostitutes and violinists
  17. ↑ Lustreise der Hamburg-Mannheimer: Ex-employee wants to publish a book about sex orgies. In: Focus Online . June 21, 2013, accessed July 11, 2015 .
  18. ↑ Lustreise-Atlas der Ergo-representatives - The top people let themselves be pampered here. bild.de , August 30, 2012, accessed April 9, 2015 .
  19. ↑ Moraga, Simply Only Truth, p. 115
  20. ↑ Moraga, Simply Only Truth, pp. 177 and 239
  21. ↑ Moraga, Simply only the truth, p. 239 and p. 244/45
  22. ↑ Answer to the general meeting of the group parent company Munich RE AG on April 24, 2013
  23. ↑ Insurer : Chronicle of the Ergo Scandal . ( handelsblatt.com [accessed on August 6, 2018]).
  24. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . June 29, 2011.
  25. ↑ Incentive guideline. In: Ergo. Ergo Compliance (COED), August 1, 2013, p. 4 , accessed on August 6, 2018 .

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