  Advances in artificial intelligence have renewed interest in conversational
agents. Additionally to software developers, today all kinds of employees show
interest in new technologies and their possible applications for customers.
German insurance companies generally are interested in improving their customer
service and digitizing their business processes. In this work we investigate
the potential use of conversational agents in insurance companies theoretically
by determining which classes of agents exist which are of interest to insurance
companies, finding relevant use cases and requirements. We add two practical
parts: First we develop a showcase prototype for an exemplary insurance
scenario in claim management. Additionally in a second step, we create a
prototype focusing on customer service in a chatbot hackathon, fostering
innovation in interdisciplinary teams. In this work, we describe the results of
both prototypes in detail. We evaluate both chatbots defining criteria for both
settings in detail and compare the results and draw conclusions for the
maturity of chatbot technology for practical use, describing the opportunities
and challenges companies, especially small and medium enterprises, face.
