We maintain an ongoing dialogue with our stakeholders in a variety of ways. Through conferences, roadshows and one-to-one meetings, for example, we stay in contact with representatives of the capital market, rating agencies and private investors. Altogether, we attended 16 investor conferences and 10 roadshows in the year under review, held four webcasted calls (e.g. on the interim reports) and 25 teleconferences with investors or analysts and hosted visits from numerous investors and analysts. In addition, analysts and institutional investors make the most of our annual Investors' Day and our analysts' conference – also held annually – to engage in an intensive exchange with management. We cultivate the dialogue with ESG rating agencies on an ongoing basis. Our employees interact with our worldwide customers through direct, face-to-face discussions. Furthermore, we regularly measure customer satisfaction with the involvement of external market research institutes. We similarly maintain an ongoing dialogue with political decision-makers, supervisory authorities and insurance industry associations – mostly in relation to topical issues in insurance supervision and financial market regulation in Germany, the European Union and on the wider international level. These include, among other things, the preparations for the Solvency II review process, the development of a global capital standard for insurers and negotiations between the European Union and the United States for a bilateral agreement on prudential insurance and reinsurance measures. In this context we contribute our specialist expertise from business practice to the public debate; in return, we are able to integrate helpful insights gained from such exchanges into our business activities and reporting.
In the interests of transparent communication with our stakeholders we have set ourselves the goal of expanding our reporting on sustainability issues. With the compilation of the present Sustainability Report we already provide annual voluntary reporting on our achievements as a responsible enterprise. In so doing, we are guided by the currently applicable and internationally recognised standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and by the transparency requirements of environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating agencies. In addition, since 2018 we have published annually our fact sheet on sustainability covering our major sustainability efforts at a glance.
In keeping with the goals defined in our Sustainability Strategy 2018 – 2020, we are also continuing to expand the dialogue with our stakeholders. 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-EIRIS, MSCI and ISS. 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 2017 and are listed in major STOXX indices.
In 2018, as in the previous years, we participated in the survey conducted by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Information related to climate change is published here with a special orientation towards the capital market. In 2018 we achieved a "C" score.
Ratings and indices | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CDP | C | B | B | C | C | |
MSCI | BBB | BB | BB | |||
oekom research | Prime Status C | Prime Status C | Prime Status C+ | |||
Sustainalytics | Score: 71 | Score: 70 | Score: 68 | |||
Listed in the following ESG indices | FTSE4Good Global Challenges Index (GCX) STOXX indices | FTSE4Good Global Challenges Index (GCX) STOXX indices | FTSE4Good |
In March 2019 we published our Non-Financial Information Statement for the second time as part of our Group Annual Report 2018. In so doing, we provide the non-financial information required since 2017 under the Commercial Code (HGB). The statement contains information regarding key environmental, social and employee matters as well as information on respect for human rights and fighting corruption and bribery.
In 2018, with a view to stepping up our dialogue with stakeholders on sustainability issues and fulfilling the requirements of the Commercial Code, we conducted another stakeholder survey with the participation of representatives from the stakeholder groups of clients, brokers, the capital market, employees, NGOs and the public sector.
Further information on our dialogue formats may be found in the chapter on "Product responsibility" under "Customer relations" and in the chapter on "Employees" under "Employee satisfaction".