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The moderator of the DKM Sustainability Congress, Gottfried Baer, Managing Director of Added Value GmbH, Bamberg, explains why insurers have so far neglected the topic of sustainability. Insurance magazine asked him about it.
Why do you think insurers are neglecting the issue of sustainability?
Gottfried Baer: I believe that due to the regulatory requirements from Berlin, with which insurers have been confronted massively in recent years due to the low interest rate situation, many insurers have been so challenged with these issues that the head for sustainability could not be big. In addition, despite these general conditions, most life insurers continued their business with positive figures. In other words, from the companies’ point of view, in my opinion, there was no particular reason to change anything in their investment policy. Unfortunately, many houses have not recognized the signs of the times in time and have not yet sufficiently implemented what would create additional trust in the population.
After the people in Germany, especially through Fridays for Future, an expectation that all those involved in the economy must ensure that they do everything they can to stop fueling climate change, something is also changing among insurers in terms of sustainability. Ultimately, all houses must now have the topic on their agenda from 2021 onwards, as EU policy now also means that the topic of sustainability must be implemented.
Aren’t there any first positive examples?
Fortunately, there are. Some houses, out of their own conviction, before the political stipulations were met, began to position the issue of sustainability fairly clearly in-house. The intensity is quite different. A distinction must also be made between sustainability issues in-house, such as the vehicle fleet, electricity provider, paper consumption, corporate management and, on the other hand, the investment policy.
Prisma Life as a fee life insurer has come a long way and is clearly positioning itself in a sustainable direction. Gothaer has also come a long way in the ranking and other houses are forming good green brands, such as the Bavarian with Pangea Life or the Stuttgart with the green pension. In terms of investment policy – and that is the greatest lever in terms of sustainability – around 60 to 70 percent of all insurers have already reacted and implemented the first sustainability criteria. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the clarity and depth of the sustainability criteria. Overall, all life insurers offer a range of sustainable investment funds in unit-linked pension insurance. However, in many houses the number is only between one and ten funds and, according to a closer analysis, these are often not the most sustainable products on the market. Here, too, there is still very clear room for improvement.
There are also some clear positions among property insurers. NV insurance is clearly aligned with Itzehoer with “Green insured”. Likewise the Waldenburgische Versicherung or the Pangea Life with the green property insurance.
What distinguishes green insurance products?
From my point of view, there are two subject areas:
- The fundamental sustainable positioning of the house – in other words the quality of CSR. (CSR stands for corporate social responsibility or corporate social responsibility)
- The insurer’s sustainable investment policy.
There are houses that bring green insurance products to the market, but still have a lot of development potential in terms of sustainability in their CSR report. And there are companies that are way ahead when it comes to CSR and also bring convincing sustainable insurance tariffs onto the market. If both subject areas are represented in an exemplary manner in terms of quality, then we are talking about a convincing green insurance product.
You can find out more about sustainability in the current insurance magazine cover story “Include future issues in advice” Experienced.
Author (s): Bernhard Rudolf
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