2019 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT UNIQA GROUP SOURCE FOR A GOOD LIFE n REFRESHED: MIX OF GENERATIONS INSPIRES YOUNG AND OLD | 12 n CLEAN: UNIQA AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS IMPROVE THE CLIMATE | 16 n CLEAR: EXERCISE FREES THE MIND | 42 4 30 CHANGE OF SOURCE FOR A ©UNIQA/Keinrath PERSPECTIVE GOOD LIFE LIVING LEARNING We’re using new working methods EDITORIAL to gather customer feedback early-on CONTENTS and give our employees greater creative scope. “It all starts with empathy,” says Barbara Liebich-Steiner, Digital Strategy & Solutions. Dear Readers, “I love it,” readers say of carpe diem. The The Green Deal of the European Union, presented by Ursula von LEARNING new media project from Red Bull Media der Leyen, is designed to make Europe climate-neutral by the year House, created in partnership with UNIQA, 2050. In order to fund the Green Deal, von der Leyen is relying on 04 CUSTOMER FOCUS: NEW WORKING METHODS, NEW MINDSETS, NEW PERSPECTIVES offers suggestions, but not instructions, for investment of €1 trillion. 10 DIVERSITY: WOMEN’S NETWORKS STRENGTHEN OUR DIVERSITY greater quality of life. With assets under management amounting to €10 trillion, the 12 GENERATIONAL MIX: HOW EXPERIENCE AND FLEXIBILITY GO TOGETHER European insurance sector is the continent’s single largest insti- 14 TIME FOR FOUNDERS: DOING BUSINESS WITH START-UPS tutional investor. Practically no other industry is quite as involved with sustainability as insurance, by virtue of its DNA. Now, 2020 is ACHIEVING presenting us with a unique opportunity, within the scope of the long-running dialogue with European institutions about reworking 16 CONVERSATIONAL CLIMATE: UNIQA, ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND COMMON GOALS 50 our pan-European regulatory framework, Solvency II, to lay success- 24 SETTING A GREEN EXAMPLE: HOT ON THE TRAIL OF POWER GUZZLERS HEALTHY FROM ful groundwork for the Green Deal at the same time. 26 A FAREWELL TO HARD COPY: SAVING PAPER WITH MOBILE DEVICES AN EARLY AGE How will that work, do you think? It’s quite simple: the really 28 PROVISION: NEW SERVICES FOR SAFER, BETTER, LONGER LIVING key issue at the heart of the Green Deal is the direction in which Europe’s investments are to be taken in future. If we can succeed in LIVING using risk capital relief to ensure a relevant proportion of the funds of European insurance companies is directed towards financial 30 CARPE DIEM: TIME FOR A GOOD LIFE securities that genuinely deserve to be described as “sustainable”, 36 PENSIONS: COSTS EXPLODE, WOMEN LOSE OUT and are not simply indulging in short-term greenwashing, then the Green Deal will work. And it will do so, moreover, without adversely 38 ART EXPERIENCE: RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE, NOT JUST LOOKING ON IT FORWARD PAYING affecting Europe’s global competitiveness. 40 SCHOOL SPORTS: TRENDS AND TEAM SPIRIT AS MOTIVATORS Help for socially disadvantaged mothers, Enjoy reading this report! Best regards, PAYING IT FORWARD exercise at school, saving cancer patients and heart patients: the foundation UNIQA 42 EXERCISE PROGRAMME: HOW SIMPLY STRONG IS IMPROVING TEACHING Stiftung is investing in public health. 48 START-UP SOFTWARE: “SYMPTOMA” MAKES IT EASIER FOR DOCTORS TO MAKE A DIAGNOSIS 50 SOCIAL BIRTH: SUPPORT AT THE START OF LIFE SUPPLEMENT: Andreas Brandstetter 54 UNIKATE: TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS FOR AND BY PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 2019 NON-FINANCIAL REPORT/UNIQA GROUP CEO UNIQA Group 2019 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT | 2 2019 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT | 3 “ IT ALL STARTS WITH EMPATHY” UNIQA/Rautenstrauch © UNIQA/Rautenstrauch © Agile working: meaningful for customers and employees, LEARNING say Barbara Liebich-Steiner and Karl Mayrhofer WE VIEW OURSELVES THROUGH THE EYES OF OUR CUSTOMERS AND ADOPT New ways of working are creating customer focus. THEIR PERSPECTIVE Barbara Liebich-Steiner, Head of Digital Strategy & Solutions, and Agile Coach Karl Mayrhofer talk about changes of perspective, mindsets and the differentiating factor of being human. ©Adobe Stock/denisismagilov 2019 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT | 4 20192019 SUSTAINABILITYSUSTAINABILITY REPORTREPORT || 5 UNIQA/Rautenstrauch © MENTAL IS NORMAL In the New Way of Working, one of the innovation teams is concerned with mental health. Although there is a real need for information and strategies for handling stress, the subject remains highly taboo, in Austria, at least. England has already begun working to change that by introducing the school subject of “Mindfulness”, while in Germany statutory health insurers are now accepting the costs of digital teletherapy. But “mental is normal”, says the team leader responsible, Patrick Magnée, and actively addressing your own mental situation should be as natural as going to the gym. Initial market tests are showing there is huge interest in the issue. The goal is to sensitise people, and to provide them with strategies for action. As Magnée puts it: “People don’t usually know what the source of their stress is, or what they can do to combat it. We want to change that.” In order to offer those people a path to mental health that’s both straightforward and effective, the innovation team designs, evaluates and tests differing approaches and solutions in both the digital and traditional environment. n Fine motive: “We can support our customers” Everyone wants to get closer to the cus- support them in doing so and make the customer as possible. Employees with of others, from banks, IT companies, start- for putting the focus on results and tomer. But is it harder for an insurance provisions, especially for things that aren’t end-to-end responsibility are always closer ups and streaming services. We try out deliveries in small steps, which can be company to do so than one in another so easy to fix – health-related issues, for to customers and their needs. With our what works for us, and what doesn’t. tested immediately. One thing that has industry? example. New Way of Working, which is still in its turned out to be an absolute must for us pilot stages at the moment, we’re moving LIEBICH-STEINER: Countries like the USA, is cross-functionality. A small multidiscipli- Barbara LIEBICH-STEINER: Yes and no. How do agile working methods help from optimised, transaction-based behav- where start-up culture is far more deeply nary team formed from the most diverse Insurance isn’t a self-explanatory product; getting closer to the customer? What iour towards creative, evolutionary and rooted than in Europe, are certainly a possible divisions, and allowed to cooper- at the same time, it is a highly tradition- does the one have to do with the sustainable learning behaviour. Employees model for the optimism needed to start ate intensely in one place in a totally dedi- al one. Like the majority of established other? can play a part, develop and grow togeth- new things, change something, and even cated way, produces far sounder results. industries, we’re most skilled at our own er – even through setbacks – and accom- tolerate mistakes. Apart from that, the team, the networking business. We’re very good at working with Karl MAYRHOFER: We’re still hanging plish something with added value for and the common mindset has a value in numbers. We’re less well-versed, how- on to the mindset and methods of the customers, which they genuinely need. To What characterises UNIQA’s own New its own right, above and beyond the ever, at viewing the world from another industrial era. Even in a knowledge-based do this, they gather feedback from those Way of Working? sprints themselves. Blending hier- perspective, that of our customers. That economy, we want to achieve greater customers as early as possible, and by do- archies has also proven to be very worked perfectly well as long as condi- optimisation of process steps, without ing so become not just more efficient, but LIEBICH-STEINER: Taking personal valuable. There will always be tions were stable. Recently though, the keeping an eye on the overall benefit also more effective overall – more useful, responsibility in small teams and working cases when managers world around us has been in such a state to the customer. In future, in a world in other words. That’s meaningful. in sprints are two elements there’s just no act according to old of upheaval that even we are being forced which is becoming more dynamic, more getting around. You can talk about wheth- habits, especially to reinvent ourselves. complex and more unstable all the time, Are there examples of this? er those sprints should last two, three or early on, but the UNIQA/Rautenstrauch But we have a fine motive for this custom- every single one of us at the company is four weeks, but as such, they, along with team regulates that © er proximity and change of perspective: going to need greater understanding for MAYRHOFER: Learning from others is their reviews, are then a basic prerequisite itself. our customers are still going to be facing customers. Solutions will need to be devel- meaningful, but there’s no single blueprint risks in life, and we can accompany them, oped in short feedback loops, as close to here. We learn from individual elements Role models: “We try out what works, and what doesn’t” 2019 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT | 6 2019 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT || 7 UNIQA/Rautenstrauch © It’s possible community thinking is the and act autonomously. That will motivate PRESERVING OUR PLANET AND most important thing. them. LEADING A HEALTHY, MINDFUL LIFE – Ultimately then, we want to create a MAYRHOFER: Digitalisation is always THOSE ARE THE KEY THEMES new mindset. What will be the most a duality consisting of using innovative important thing for that to succeed? new technologies on the one hand, and opening up the vast creative potential LIEBICH-STEINER: The people, the em- of people at the company on the other, ployees.