Public Affairs

NEWS

10.12.2021

"As UNIQA, we are against the inclusion of nuclear energy in the “green EU taxonomy”. This should only include perfectly climate-friendly energy generation such as wind, solar or geothermal energy and encourage investments in this form of sustainability. For investors who unfortunately want to continue investing in fossil energy generation and nuclear power, a separate legal and particularly transparent framework would have to be created." - Andreas Brandstetter, CEO UNIQA Insurance Group AG

Mission Statement

At a time when European society is facing numerous challenges and problems, UNIQA sees it as part of its responsibility as a corporate citizen to be part of the solution. Therefore, we are engaged in an open and constructive dialogue with numerous public stakeholders in order to work together on the legal framework of the future.

The role of Public Affairs at UNIQA is to identify key societal trends and emerging policy and regulatory initiatives that are relevant to UNIQA. Public Affairs develops a position on these issues in close cooperation with internal and external stakeholders and interest groups and represents it as the company's "foreign policy" to governments, regulators, associations or the public. 

UNIQA participates in the regulation of the financial system 

Since January 2016, Solvency II has successfully met the decades-old challenge of modernising insurance regulation in the European Union (EU) in terms of solvency requirements, governance, risk management and disclosure obligations. UNIQA supports the European Commission's ambition to use the ongoing review of the Solvency II Directive to mobilise capital for private investment in the post-Covid recovery of the European economy and the EU Green Deal. In order to meet this political goal, we believe that numerous improvements still need to be implemented in the draft presented by the European Commission in September 2021.  



UNIQA supports Sustainable Finance and implements corresponding measures

The increasing threat to the global climate deserves UNIQA's attention, because the risks resulting from climate change have a direct impact on our customers and thus also on our core business as an insurance company. The insurance industry can play a key role in the transition to a sustainable economy - both through risk coverage for indirect and direct effects of climate risks and through targeted sustainable investments. Since insurance companies cannot act in isolation from the real economy, investments are urgently needed in areas such as infrastructure and energy production. UNIQA therefore supports the efforts of the European Commission to mobilise private capital for investments in a climate-neutral Europe within the framework of the Sustainable Finance Action Plan and the European Green Deal. However, the legislative projects initiated for this purpose, such as the Disclosure Regulation and the Taxonomy Regulation, pose challenges for insurance companies due to their complexity and the short implementation period. Public Affairs supports the departments concerned here by clarifying open legal questions in the implementation of the many new regulatory requirements.  

Digitalisation with responsibility 

The digital economy is developing rapidly worldwide and brings with it great opportunities - but also great challenges. National authorities, together with the European Commission, have developed a digital agenda to foster growth and innovation through the implementation of a Digital Single Market strategy. New technologies offer new business opportunities for both established institutions and emerging players. In particular, the emergence of fintechs has led to a wider range of online financial services, including digital insurance services (InsurTechs). In addition, innovations such as blockchain technology, robo-advisors, driverless cars, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the use of cloud computing are fundamentally changing the insurance business. 

UNIQA is aware that digitalisation is not merely a technical development, but an industrial and social revolution that is driven by and affects society as a whole. This development offers enormous opportunities for the insurance industry, but also implies a responsibility for national and European legislators to ensure a level playing field between large Internet corporations and other economic participants.