Swiss Re at a glance
Martin A. Schweighauser, Energy Industry Expert, Swiss Re Ă–MV Refinery, Schwechat, Austria
Cover Swiss Re Tower, 30 St Mary Axe, London Photo: Grant Smith
Swiss Re: building on a successful past Swiss Re was founded in 1863 and is now one of the world›s leading reinsurers with more than 70 offices in 30 countries. We are proud of our success which fuels our ambition to look forward with confidence to the future and to reinforce our already strong position in our core business areas of risk transfer, risk financing and asset management. We are building on Swiss Re›s strength as a leading financial services company for insurers and corporate clients by fully exploiting market potential. We are using our know-how and financial strength to provide a broad array of risk and capital management solutions and to secure consistent, long-term profitable growth. Our ability to emulate this success depends largely on the skills and dedication of our employees. Swiss Re›s organisation, which is aligned with the strategy, together with the integration of GE Insurance Solutions, provide a perfect base from which to continue delivering high quality reinsurance solutions to our clients as well as strong and sustainable earnings. Jacques Aigrain, CEO, Swiss Re
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Andrew Castaldi, Natural Hazards Team Expert, Swiss Re San Andreas Fault, California
Our business is based on knowledge, expertise and financial strength Swiss Re provides a broad range of traditional reinsurance products and services. Financial strength is a central component of Swiss Re’s client franchise and therefore of the Group’s value proposition. The very strong capitalisation, outstanding business position, excellent diversification and prudent capital and risk management are reflected in superior insurance financial strength ratings which are among the highest in the industry. Swiss Re targets profitable growth and the efficient use of its capital combined with close client relationships. To best serve these aims, the Group›s organisational structure has been aligned into three business functions: Client Markets, Products and Financial Services Client Markets: putting the client first Client Markets› activities focus on client needs, identifying market trends and providing products and services through a range of distribution channels. This business function has global responsibility for delivering client service and growth in all business lines. The Client Markets Business Function is organised into four divisions – Americas, Europe, Asia, and Globals & Large Risks – aimed at ensuring an in-depth understanding of clients requirements and the respective markets. Building on long-standing, close relationships, Client Markets offers our customers attractive, transparent solutions, supports them in their business activities and fosters further cooperation. Throughout its more than 140-year history, Swiss Re has continuously expanded its market position. Client Markets consolidates this strong position, thereby strenghtening the foundations for Swiss Re to maintain the role as a leader in the insurance industry.
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Judith Klugmann, Insurance-Linked Securities Expert, Swiss Re Florida Keys, US
Products: driving innovation The Products Business Function is the driving force behind product development, underwriting standards and claims management. It comprises the Property & Speciality, Casualty, Life & Health, and Claims & Liability Management divisions. Swiss Re, as one of the world›s leading reinsurers, has optimum risk diversification and a broad product offering. The Products Business Function ensures that Swiss Re is constantly innovating and bringing new products to market, products that are of high quality for the benefit of clients. It also makes sure that underwriting, risk assessment and pricing meet the same high standards. Products deploys Swiss Re›s knowledge and experience to guarantee high-quality underwriting and make available uniform criteria for the pricing of risks in life and non-life business. One key element of its work is managing the insurance cycle in order to optimise long-term profit levels across all business units. In addition, experts in this business function are responsible for standardised claims management in all markets and lines of business.
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Financial Services: extending risk securitisation The Financial Services Business Function combines Swiss Re›s capital management expertise with risk underwriting capacity. This business function is home to the Asset Management, Insurance Risk Transformation, Credit Solutions, and Capital Management and Advisory divisions. The importance of risk securitisation is growing as the insurance industry explores new ways of accessing risk capital to cope with the increasing frequency and severity of insured events. Financial Services translates Swiss Re›s knowledge and experience into innovative risk and capital market solutions for clients. Insurance-linked securities (ILS) is an effective management tool to increase capacity and transfer peak risks, as well as volume insurance risks, to the capital markets. It helps reduce capital requirements and increase capital efficiency. It lowers earnings volatility and, in the case of life insurance, monetises intangibles. Swiss Re has been a pioneer in developing the ILS market and is a leading structurer and underwriter of bonds for clients and has introduced numerous innovations such as embedded value life securitisations.
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Sonja Kaufmann, Special Risks/Event Cancellation Expert, Swiss Re Nou Camp stadium, Barcelona, Spain
Expertise you can build on One fundamental task of the insurance industry is to identify risks at an early stage and develop solutions to deal with them. Risk and capital management are therefore core competencies of Swiss Re›s business. Within risk management, risk diversification is crucial for reducing the impact of individual losses within the overall portfolio. Besides underwriting expertise, risk management is one of the key factors in a reinsurer›s success and a core component in the reinsurance value chain. Swiss Re has adopted an integrated risk management approach to assess risk and allocate capacity to clients. This involves close cooperation between the areas of risk management, underwriting, asset management and capital management. The success of this approach depends on the ability to build up the required knowledge and experience and to calculate claims fluctuations. Swiss Re therefore attracts, develops and retains highly skilled and motivated professionals to deliver competitive services in line with its business strategy.
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Ivo Menzinger, Sustainability Expert, Swiss Re Gorner Glacier, Switzerland
The effects of Swiss Re›s sophisticated risk management approach are evident in areas such as managing the financial consequences of natural catastrophes. Losses from natural catastrophes, such as earthquakes, storms and flooding, can fluctuate significantly from year to year. Calculating them is an extremely complex process due to natural climatic variability, the difficulty of predicting when such events will occur, high population growth in numerous exposed regions and the concentration of values that this represents. On top of this, climate change increases the possibility that the severity and frequency of future events will deviate considerably from those in the past. Despite all these uncertainties, the reinsurer must still calculate the fluctuations, which are then combined with historical values and fed into business models to create the appropriate reinsurance programme. Swiss Re has developed proprietary risk models to assess and manage its natural hazards portfolio. These state-of-the-art models can simulate hundreds of thousands of events, thus making it possible to adequately model even rare and unusual accumulations of natural catastrophes. At the same time, it becomes possible to manage the business better and optimise – ie reduce – the amount of capital needed to back up a given amount of risk. This allows much more realistic risk analysis, and thus more exact, more differentiated premium rates. So, although the models cannot prevent a catastrophe or relieve human suffering, they do contribute to making the financial consequences of natural catastrophes more bearable.
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Swiss Re shares its knowledge in other ways, ie through training and conference centres, a comprehensive range of publications and tailored web portals. The Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue near Zurich is an ideal platform for fostering dialogue on changes to the risk landscape and the challenges facing the company and society. In addition, through the Swiss Insurance Training Centre in Zurich, Swiss Re offers courses for clients and insurance experts at various levels. The Technical Publishing range and the sigma series examine market-relevant topics in more detail. They are key publications for selected areas of insurance and reinsurance, in which Swiss Re analyzes current trends and anticipates issues that may impact the insurance industry in future. These tools and channels do not allow Swiss Re to predict the future. But they do help the clients to identify developments at an early stage and outline the probable effects on markets, governments, science and society.
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Luzi Hitz, Natural Hazards Expert, Swiss Re Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter, Hong Kong, China
Corporate governance: the key to long-term success Corporate governance is the framework comprising a company’s organisation, structure, management and assurance functions. It is designed to ensure a corporation’s transparency, protecting the interests of shareholders and creating value for clients and all stakeholders. Swiss Re takes a proactive approach to stakeholders’ expectations and interests with its own, and continues to conduct benchmarking with best practice standards. There is a growing connection between corporate governance and corporate sustainability. A company’s sustainability practice, and its reputational value, is increasingly being perceived as an important driver of continued business success. Swiss Re has firmly integrated sustainability practice into its corporate framework, thus creating economic value by improving its environment and social perfomance beyond mere compliance with laws and regulations.
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Jens Mehlhorn, Flood Expert, Swiss Re North Frisian Wadden Sea, Germany
Swiss Re around the world Head Office Swiss Reinsurance Company Mythenquai 50/60 8022 Zurich Telephone +41 43 285 2121 Africa Swiss Re Africa Swiss Park, 10 Queens Road Parktown 2193 Johannesburg, South Africa Telephone +27 11 489 5600 Americas Swiss Re in Armonk 175 King Street Armonk, New York 10504 Telephone +1 914 828 8000 Swiss Re in New York Park Avenue Plaza 55 East 52nd Street New York, NY 10055 Telephone +1 212 317 5400 Swiss Re in Calabasas 26050 Mureau Road Calabasas, CA 91302 Telephone +1 818 878 9500 Swiss Re in Canada 150 King Street West Suite 2200, P.O. Box 50 Toronto, Ontario M5H 1J9 Telephone +1 416 408 0272
Asia Swiss Re Asia Division Headquarters 36/F Central Plaza 18 Harbour Road Wanchai, Hong Kong Telephone +852-2582-3600 Swiss Re Singapore 1 Raffles Place OUB Centre Singapore 048616 Telephone +65 6532 2161 Swiss Re Japan Otemachi First Square West Tower 9F 5-1 Otemachi 1 chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0004 Telephone +81 3 3272 2877 Australia Swiss Re Australia Level 29, 363 George Street Sydney NSW 2000 Telephone +61 2 8295 9500
Europe Swiss Reinsurance Company UK 30 St Mary Axe London EC3A 8EP Telephone +44 20 7933 3000 Swiss Re Germany Dieselstraße 11 85774 Unterföhring bei München Telephone +49 89 3844-0 Swiss Re France 7, rue de Logelbach 75847 Paris Cedex 17 Telephone +33 1 43 18 30 00 Swiss Re Italy Via dei Giuochi Istmici, 40 00194 Rom Telephone: +39 06 32 3931 Swiss Re Spain Paseo de la Castellana, 95 28046 Madrid Telephone +34 91 598 1726
The addresses of all Swiss Re offices are available from www.swissre.com
Swiss Reinsurance Company Mythenquai 50/60 P.O. Box 8022 Zurich Switzerland Telephone +41 43 285 2121 Fax +41 43 285 2999 www.swissre.com