By making regular donations and enabling corporate volunteering, i.e. releasing employees for charitable activities during working hours, we support social projects all around the world. In so doing, we contribute our expertise in the area of reinsurance, whenever possible.

With our guidelines on donations, which are applicable Group-wide, we have defined our own policies for this social engagement. Along with individual employee donations, we lend our support each year to projects in the following five different categories:

• Commitment to society, science, art and culture
• Commitment to the environment and climate protection
• Commitment to employees
• Commitment to the welfare and protection of young people
• Commitment to advances in medicine / humanitarian projects

In our Sustainability Strategy we have set ourselves the goal of reviewing these guidelines and recording the social activities undertaken Group-wide. We attach crucial importance to the common public interest of the social groups and projects supported by our company. A small selection of activities illustrating our social engagement in 2017 is described below.

We support universities by, among other things, contributing to the funding of an endowed junior professorship for insurance mathematics at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg.

Our employees in Charlotte support the "Bethlehem Center", whose mission is to provide education opportunities for underprivileged children and low-income families in order to improve their quality of life.

For the first time in the year under review we made a donation to the non-profit women's rights organisation "Terre de Femmes". It focuses on issues relating to, among other things, domestic and sexualised violence, trafficking in women and misogynistic advertising.

Since 2009 our employees in Milan have supported the "Comitato Maria Letizi Verga Onlus", which provides financial support for a centre for paediatric haematology. The centre offers children optimal medical and psychosocial care so as to enhance their chances of recovery and quality of life.

In Sydney we support the organisation "SuperFriend", which focuses on creating positive, healthy and safe workplaces for the reduction of mental illness. In addition, our branch organises a tea party every year in order to collect donations for cancer research in cooperation with the Australian Cancer Council.

The employees at our subsidiary in Orlando support the "Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida". This local chapter of the national organisation gives almost 14,000 children aged between 6 and 18 safe places to learn, grow and have fun.

Our branches in the United States take part in the annual "Walk to End Alzheimer's" in their home cities and collect donations for the Alzheimer's Association. The goal is to provide optimal support and care for people living with dementia and their families.