- Home
- Foreword
- Company portrait
- Strategy and Management
- Governance and Dialogue
- Product responsibility
- Employees
- Environment and Society
- GRI-Index
- Sites
Dialogue formats
In 2013, with a view to stepping up our dialogue with stakeholders on sustainability issues, we conducted a survey with the participation of 30 representatives spanning the capital market, clients, staff, NGOs and public sector workers. According to the stakeholders, it is in the field of responsible enterprise management that our activities are most widely recognised and most favourably evaluated. Room for improvement was identified in the areas of sustainability communication and product responsibility as well as in relation to corporate environmental protection and employees. Our stakeholders attach central significance to entrepreneurial responsibility with respect to economic aspects as well as product responsibility, including asset management. As part of our regular dialogue with our stakeholders we constantly encourage feedback on our activities and respond to emerging issues.
It is also important to pay attention to global concerns with an eye to the future. These are, for example, renewable energy sources, climate change, environmental protection, financial inclusion and tax policy. We took into account the opinions of our stakeholders when defining the focus topics of our Sustainability Strategy.
Dialogue with ESG rating agencies
In keeping with the goals defined in our Sustainability Strategy 2015 – 2017 we are also continuing to expand the dialogue with Environmental, Social and Governance rating agencies (ESG rating agencies). Going forward, we intend to report at greater length on topics that have come up in discussions with rating agencies. These include, among other things, aspects of product responsibility, current research activities on ESG topics and products as well as cooperation with primary insurers on the management of ESG issues.
Since 2014 we have been listed in the FTSE4Good, a worldwide index series geared to sustainability ratings according to ESG criteria. Based on our published GRI Report, we were also evaluated in the year under review by the rating agency oekom research AG with an eye to our sustainability performance and – in recognition of our above-average fulfilment of the sector-specific requirements – we were again awarded "Prime" status. Furthermore, we were evaluated by the ESG rating agencies Robeco SAM, Sustainalytics, Vigeo, MSCI and Sustainability Intelligence. We engage in a continuous dialogue on rating-specific sustainability issues as part of the annual rating processes. Additionally, we were included in the Global Challenges Index for the first time in the year under review and are listed in major STOXX indices.
Cultivating our customer relationships
We participate in an ongoing dialogue with our clients around the world. Customer relationships are normally maintained by individual divisions at our company. In this regard, the Life & Health reinsurance business group is especially committed to long-term customer relationships founded on a trusting and partnership-based approach. Since 2014 we have published the quarterly newsletter "ReCent Medical News" as a source of information that enables our customers to learn about the latest research results in various fields of medicine as well as new methods with a bearing on medical underwriting.
The Property & Casualty reinsurance business group has organised the seminar series "Building Bridges" since 2012. The seminars, which are held once a year, enable it to respond more closely to the individual reinsurance needs of our customers.
International employee survey
A worldwide employee survey was conducted in 2015 / 2016. A key finding was the very high level of satisfaction identified among our staff. This is true both of the average evaluation across all questions and for virtually all individual questions. The strong motivation and commitment expressed by our employees is especially gratifying. When it comes to room for improvement, they pointed to a broader-based system of remuneration and further improvements in the support given to their continuing individual training. Based on the insights of the survey, individual measures were explored in the year under review in various areas of the company and, where appropriate, implemented.