It is crucial to our company's success that we are perceived by our customers as a preferred business partner. If we are to be considered the best option, we must offer prices commensurate with the risks, adequate capacities and a reliable value proposition. As a business-to-business service provider, the fair design of our products – i.e. of contracts with Primary insurers – is an essential prerequisite for our business. We expect integrity from all our employees at all times in their dealings with clients and have enshrined these expectations on a mandatory basis in our Code of Conduct, which is applicable worldwide.

We maintain close contacts with our customers. In order to respond quickly and flexibly to individual customer requirements, we emphasise flat hierarchies, direct decision-making channels and the importance of empowering underwriters with the appropriate authorities. By means of conferences that we hold on specific topics, seminars and business trips, we cultivate an ongoing and regular dialogue with our clients, consolidate our customer relationships and use the direct feedback provided on our efforts as an opportunity to further optimise our activities. In accordance with our Sustainability Strategy 2015 – 2017, we continued to step up our exchange of views with customers and expanded our international dialogue channels.

Our customer relationships are cultivated on the level of individual divisions and departments. In property and casualty reinsurance we cultivate our customer relationships both directly and through reinsurance brokers by way of regular business trips or video conferences. Not only that, our employees attend trade fairs and specialist gatherings around the world and organise seminars for our clients on specific subjects. Through informational events such as the seminar series "Building Bridges" in property and casualty reinsurance we foster an exchange of ideas within the industry. In this context, every year since 2012 we have offered our international customers the multi-day seminar "Advanced Reinsurance Methods, Practices and Current Topics". Starting in 2016 we expanded our offering to include the topics "Credit, Surety and Political Risks". Additionally, our subsidiary E+S Rück holds specialist conferences for its customers to share information on claims management and risk management and give presentations on topics such as compliance, sanctions, the reform of insurance supervision law associated with Solvency II and climate change.

In life and health reinsurance we have a direct local presence in most markets based on our decentralised approach and are thus able to exchange views with our clients quickly and flexibly. In the form of the customer newsletter "ReCent Medical News" we have regularly published information since 2014 on medical and socioeconomic issues – including on social media platforms such as LinkedIn. Further flyers on a broad spectrum of topics – ranging from automated Underwriting to the very latest information – can be retrieved through our website's Media Centre in various languages (including Spanish, French, Polish, German, English, Chinese and Italian). Flyers are also available here for download on a range of issues that we tackle in the context of our working group on "Emerging Risks & Scientific Affairs".

We conduct regular surveys to measure the satisfaction of our customers on both a regional and Group-wide basis – not only independently but also with the support of external market research institutes when it comes to certain markets. In view of the importance that we attach to accommodating the specific features of individual markets, we consciously do not carry out any general uniform survey of customer satisfaction on a global basis across all our divisions.

Since 2000, for example, we have conducted customer satisfaction surveys in our market department serving Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy in a three-year cycle. This reflects our desire to achieve continuous quality improvement as well as high customer satisfaction. Market research carried out by an independent marketing institute in 2016 found that the views of more than 90% of our German customers can be summed up as follows:

In our business group of Life & Health reinsurance we commission a market research agency to carry out an annual survey of reinsurance customers in the markets of the United States, Europe, South Africa, Canada, Australia and Asia. The data give us a comprehensive customer perspective on the quality of our services as well as an assessment of the perception of the Hannover Re brand in the various markets. In 2017 our favourable standing in the eyes of our customers on international markets remained unchanged. The intensive and wide-ranging dialogue that we cultivate with our clients played a major part in this.

In addition, since 2012 the market research agency has also provided the Board members responsible for the Life & Health reinsurance business group with an annual global study on the development of different business segments, a dedicated perspective on life reinsurance markets and trends in primary insurance business, an area-wide analysis of market penetration and market perception as well as a profile of strengths and weaknesses from the customer's viewpoint. Most notably, in the financial solutions segment in the United States we are regarded as the market leader and "Best in Class". Our customers find us to be a business partner who is exceptionally pleasant and easy to work with. Our direct approachability, flexibility and quick response times are evaluated particularly favourably by customers and considered a competitive advantage in comparison with our peers. Our regular analysis of the study's findings also enables us to measure the success of our strategy and possibly make adjustments.

We process the results of our customer surveys and studies in-house so as to identify potential action fields. The steps taken such as intensive training programmes for our customers and market representatives have not only served to improve the perception of our brand, they have also made our services and products stronger. In recent years, for example, we have refined our automated underwriting systems, expanded them according to the wishes of our customers and brought new product ideas to market.

Unlike in the retail insurance sector, the reinsurance industry is not subject to statutory requirements to provide product or service information to its customers. On the contrary, in the context of taking out a reinsurance treaty it is normally the primary insurers that are required to provide detailed information to Reinsurers about their business operations and the reinsured portfolio so that the reinsurer can accurately assess the risks. In the reporting period there were no incidents of non-compliance with our duties to provide information about products or services. Nor were there any incidents of non-compliance with voluntary codes governing requirements to provide information. We do not conduct any advertising measures aimed at end customers in the sense of product marketing. Isolated marketing activities are carried out for the Hannover Re and E+S Rück brands, for example through image advertisements and information brochures about the company's orientation. Sales promotion takes place solely through individual contacts with clients.