General Director Schimetschek named five strategic principles, which UNIQA has already realized and on which the future strength of the Group will be based:

• A clear Group structure and competitive cost structure making use of synergies
• A unified, international appearance on the market, with UNIQA as a global insurer, with subsidiaries using special marketing channels with strong growth potential. Raiffeisen-Versicherung will promote marketing via banks and a direct insurer, which will market also via the Internet.
• Internationally comprehensible capital and ownership structure, with the entire share capital listed (in the coming months) and conversion to a unified share category of ordinary shares with a nominal value of ATS 100. 
• Internationalization will continue to be pursued vigorously. Schimetschek: "Since recently we have been present in Croatia; in Slovenia we have opened a representative office and at the same time we are looking at possibilities of entering the Polish market.“
• A new view of the customer: UNIQA will perceive every customer as an individual to be taken seriously if the company wants to be the partner he or she needs.  

Services must become more evidently a form of assistance to customers. Schimetschek: "If a customer passes his private risk management on to use, our response should not be bureaucratic“.

Products must be more easily manageable for the customer. It is not his job to worry about what he needs, but that of the insurance company. “That means that we have to be very flexible, very creative and sensitively develop solutions, so transparent that the sophisticated customer, aware of price and quality, can make an informed decision”, added Schimetschek.

Change of paradigm in product philosophy: the example of All Risk
As Schimetschek stated, UNIQA is in the midst of preparations for a series of innovative products and new product categories, which will come onto the market next year.  The first example he named was the first All Risk Home Insurance in Austria, which will be launched in a few weeks’ time. "The customer should no longer be surprised by unforeseen events, about which nobody thought at the time the policy was taken out. With use, the customer can assure against everything that is not explicitly noted on a short list of exclusions. This is a change of paradigm that moves away from stolid traditional standards ever less relevant, to a really comprehensive, risk-minimizing form of insurance cover.

All 5,500 staff involved
UNIQA’s new path will be pursued with great energy:

• At the beginning of 1999 all staff became employees of the holding company
• 5,500 staff were intensively trained in courses and seminars on the new challenges
• Innumerable hours were spent on the conversion to the corporate identity.
• About 1000 new types of printed material were produced, which will be used as from today
• A general revision and revamping of all product and service portfolios is under way

Herbert Schimetschek, who on Monday presented the new logo and the new corporate design sees that the preconditions have now been met

• To become a major European insurer
• To acknowledge the Austrian origin and identity
• To secure qualitative market leadership in the home market of Austria  

"Visiting card": A UNIQA study, a book about the future
A “visiting card” was what Schimetschek called a major UNIQA study about the future carried out last summer with 65,000 respondents It was a study that asked people in Austria about their hopes, wishes and dreams. Taking these seriously, it reflects UNIQA’s approach to individual customers. The book about the study, entitled “Our future is bright. The OTHER Austria”, was also presented on Monday and will be delivered in the next few days to booksellers and 15,000 people who have ordered a free copy

back

print