Our customers
We work together with our customers to build a more sustainable future.
Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We continuously strive to deepen our understanding of their needs to serve them better, expanding our portfolio of sustainable products and services, and assisting customers in their sustainability transition. This also includes providing a great customer experience, as well as clear, fair and transparent communication and advice.
Inspiring change
“At Zurich, we don’t insure against. We ensure for. Our customers’ needs are evolving, that’s why we offer personalized solutions and sustainable products that help them to drive positive change and mitigate risks.”
The context
Over the last 150-plus years, Zurich has proven to be a reliable and trustworthy company using its expertise to care for both society at large and individuals. But customer expectations are evolving, so we have to continuously adapt to their needs. Lifestyles are changing, creating new demands. Technology, meanwhile, is having a profound impact, leading to more customers expecting a seamless digital experience. They desire more personalized products, faster delivery and simpler processes.
Our customer sustainability goals:
- Supporting transitions and scaling sustainable solutions.
- Differentiating via positive impact.
- Providing customer care with empathy.
- Developing and selling relevant products and services
We aim to use our experience, expertise and insights to build meaningful relationships with our customers and become a trusted partner so we’re more relevant to them, and more connected to the communities. We are leveraging the power of data, insights and AI, through a human lens, to create customer experiences, products and services across the Group that are increasingly personalized, in line with our Data and Responsible AI Commitment.
Customer stories
Zurich Malaysia and GX Bank Berhad have entered a 10-year exclusive bancassurance partnership to offer customized and accessible micro protection insurance solutions to the underserved. By utilizing intuitive technology and data-driven insights, GX Bank will identify customer pain points and work with Zurich Malaysia to create affordable, user-friendly digital insurance products.
We work with Blue Marble, who offer socially impactful, viable protection. Blue Marble supports smallholder farmers with income stability and food security, and offers income protection for individuals and SMEs against health issues and business interruptions. Their mission is to serve financially underserved populations with innovative climate adaptation and risk management programs. They are co-owned by Zurich and four other insurers.
Starting January 2024, Zurich Germany offers the Junior BU+ and Junior Berufskasko occupational disability policies for schoolchildren aged 10 and older, allowing parents and grandparents to insure children at a young, healthy age with low premiums and coverage for 10 basic abilities up to age 21. Additional benefits include a part-time clause and professional re-entry assistance.
Zurich UK encourages our people to think of customers across four pillars: financial; physical; mental; and social wellbeing. Customers who are struggling in one or more of these areas have access to a host of support, and, where specialist support is required, can signpost to organizations or charities that may be able to provide better and more specific support for the challenges being faced.
Supporting transitions and scaling sustainable solutions
We believe insurance can make a significant contribution to the change required to achieve the low-carbon transition. We work with customers and collaborate with public and private organizations to develop innovative solutions that enhance resilience and help prevent or minimize damage and harm from climate-related perils.
Our insurance and risk management solutions are developing with the release of new technologies, business models and approaches that are needed to achieve a climate-neutral economy.
Our Zurich Carbon Neutral World Equity Fund is a strong example of our Group initiatives which was launched in 2021. The fund combines a well-diversified investment in global equities across developed markets with a low carbon investment strategy and carbon-offsetting (Zurich Annual Report 2023, page 186). The fund is aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement and is available in eight different countries. As of December 2023, the fund had net flows of EUR 267 million with Assets under Management reaching EUR 591 million.
We consider the management of claims to be one of the most important customer experiences and, in 2023, we won awards in more than 10 countries recognizing our market-leading claims services. We continue to develop our claims teams across our business to enable them to be equipped to respond to our customers when needed most. An example of this is our Japanese Accident & Health claims team, that developed and implemented a Vulnerable Customer Training Program to complement their Senior (over 65) Personal Accident Product. This training has been rolled out to over 80 staff members and has helped embed an empathetic claims service, that is tailored to the individual needs of the 28,000 customers supported in 2023. Using vision impairment goggles and noise-reducing headphones during their training, they put themselves in a position to understand their customers’ specific challenges.
Zurich’s sustainable energy strategy underpins the development of our energy book and helps support customers as they transition to lower carbon operating models. Globally, we increased the number of hubs authorized to write renewable energy from four to 10. Each hub supports renewable energy customers based on a local underwriting authority that is tailored to market requirements and underwriting expertise. To increase and maintain the appropriate talent for our energy strategy, we continue to upskill and cross-train underwriters and recruit additional expertise as needed. We have established a green graduate program in order to further build our talent pipeline. In 2023, participants who focused on sustainable energy rotated through Claims, Underwriting and Risk Engineering roles as part of the program.
Our dedicated Climate Resilience team brings together experts in multiple disciplines, all of which are needed in order to assess the impact of climate change on a customer’s operations and propose adaptation measures. From climate data, data analytics, mathematics, atmospheric and environmental science, to engineers specialized in climate change and natural hazards resilience assessments – we put our knowledge and data to work to assist customers in their climate adaptation journey.
Sustainable solutions meeting our internal criteria generated USD 1.4 billion (1.7 percent of our total gross written premiums, fees and net flows) in revenues during 2023 (USD 801 million in 2022). We continue to strive to create new solutions that help our customers on their journey to becoming more sustainable.
Since 2022 we have increased our approved solutions across our environmental, social and sustainable investment categories from 247 to 335 in 2023, mainly driven by our environmental category with 78.
Revenues from sustainable solutions split by region & sustainable category
*Rounding on totals for Sustainable investments to 1d.p means EMEA is 274 (273.5) and APAC is 1 (0.64) with LATAM being 0.04 = 0. Total is 274.18 or 274m USD
Several products incentivize health, safety, and/or environmentally responsible actions/behaviors for our customers. Here are some examples:
As part of our workers’ compensation proposition in Australia, we assess all physical injury claimants for mental health risk factors. If the assessment shows the possibility of poor mental health, we proactively link our customers with support services to help them cope and address any potential mental health issues. This aims to provide assistance to customers who may not have recognized or sought mental health support before.
In North America, Zurich Resilience Solutions (ZRS) helps customers to have the programs and training they need, to effectively spot potential human trafficking exposures. We also acknowledge that human trafficking is not limited to sex trafficking and provide guidance on how to spot potential exposures in their supply chains.
ZRS in the UK offers a service that reviews new build designs and considers property-related issues. These include overall:
- construction type and system
- fire performance from a property protection perspective
- flood resilience and resistance measures
- potential security exposures and protections and other perils such as escape of water vulnerabilities and suitable prevention measures
In Switzerland, damage coverage linked to the Sharely platform, encourages people to lend their items by renting them out, for example, garden tools such as lawnmowers, hedge trimmers, or carpet cleaning products for customers' home, as well as e-bikes. Encouraging this behavior reduces the need to buy new which saves resources and reduces additional carbon generation.
In our North America commercial business, two new repair vs replace solutions for warranties were launched, one appliance warranty product (a service contract, where repairing the product has priority over replacement.) and one home warranty solution ( uses the most resource-efficient (e.g., energy star rating) appliances to replace broken ones.)
In 2023, Hong Kong developed a new home solution in its retail market which takes a holistic approach to making your property more sustainable by:
- Providing a referral service to help recycle home electronic goods
- Encouraging recycling by incentivizing repair instead of replace with additional claim quotas.
- Including the installment of solar panels into the building cover to support the use of renewal energy.
- Incentivizing saving electricity with an e-voucher for year-on-year electricity savings Is this too much?
LiveWell – Make health a habit
LiveWell and its global team have a strong passion for people sustainability and health-related topics.
While building a global community of users engaged in their health, LiveWell is also contributing to a more resilient, sustainable society. LiveWell’s mission is to inspire positive change and provide impactful services and solutions to help improve health and wellbeing. With a focus on personal goals, needs, and motivations, LiveWell is empowering users to build healthy habits that last.
LiveWell supports every individual's right to life-long good health and a good quality of life. As well as their own efforts to promote and practice sustainability, LiveWell also works with their partners to provide users with carbon offset opportunities through their in-app reward system.
Driving electromobility forward
Zurich Australia is now the preferred EV insurance provider for Tesla customers in Australia through the 'InsureMyTesla' offering, accessible via the Tesla app. This partnership underscores Zurich's commitment to sustainable insurance solutions and its expertise in the growing EV market. Zurich has partnered with Tesla in Switzerland since 2016. We are committed to driving a sustainable future, investing in cutting-edge technology, and delivering top-tier products and services to customers.
In 2022, Zurich Switzerland’s subsidiary Zurich Schweiz Service AG launched Zurich Z Volt, a unit price offering for electric car charging. This initiative offers an alternative to the often complicated and untransparent electric vehicle charging models.
Users get a free account that provides access to numerous charging stations across Switzerland and in other parts of Europe. They can charge their electric vehicle without any hidden costs and pay directly – either via the app or the physical charging card. There is no basic fee or subscription fee. In addition, electric vehicle drivers who do not have a Zurich policy are also able to benefit from a flat price (this is currently restricted to persons domiciled in Switzerland).
