Aviva and CSR
Company profile
Aviva is the world’s fifth largest insurance group and the biggest in the UK. We are one of the leading providers of life and pensions products to Europe and have substantial businesses elsewhere around the world. Our 49,000 employees serve some 30 million customers worldwide.
Aviva’s principal business activities are long-term savings, fund management and general insurance, with worldwide premium income (before reinsurance) and retail investment sales from continuing operations of £33 billion and assets under management of £273 billion.
Our CSR programme covers all Aviva businesses worldwide. Due to the announced sale of our general insurance business in Asia during 2004, we did not report on that business’s performance.
What we mean by CSR
Aviva’s CSR policy governs performance in eight related elements. These are management of our relations with our customers, workforce, suppliers and the community; of our performance in respect of the environment, human rights and health and safety and of our adherence to rigorous standards of business conduct.
The CSR policy sets out how we approach our business and how we deal with people in pursuing our business. It contains brief summaries of fuller policy statements. The exception is in the case of customers, where there is not yet one detailed statement to cover the diversity of the business activities in which we are engaged. However, the standards of business conduct policy does contain some minimum explicit undertakings in respect of customers.
Why we practise CSR
We practise CSR because we believe that it is the right way to go about business. In our opinion, you do not put a price or a cost on good ethics. You practise it simply because it is the right thing to do. For us, the same applies self-evidently to the rest of the CSR programme. We regard it as an investment in building organisational strength for today and durability for tomorrow. We believe that it strengthens the fibre that builds both internal and external trust and makes us stronger. In all senses, it builds value.
In our view, the practice of CSR enhances our business performance both in the short and the long term. We believe that it increasingly engages our employees, our investors and our customers. Firstly, CSR provides an additional route through which existing employees can identify with and live out the Aviva Values of integrity, progressiveness, performance and teamwork. It also attracts potential new employees. Secondly, it reflects the internal focus and practice of the company, which is the special interest of the growing number of socially responsible investors (SRI). Thirdly, it helps us meet the criteria of the increasing numbers of customers who seek evidence of good CSR performance. These are three important streams of value.
Without doubt, the beneficial impacts arising from these streams of value add to better “bottom line” performance. In drawing on this value, we also meet our responsibilities to our shareholders, who have a right to expect that we grow value for them.
Group CSR team
Anthony Sampson
Director of CSR
Nathalie De Geus
Head of CSR
Michelle Wolfe
CSR
Communications Manager
Annette Pendrey
CSR Management Consultant
Zelda Bentham
Environment
Manager
Megan Crockford
CSR Assistant
Richard Whitaker
Group Company Secretary
How we practise CSR
Integrating CSR into our business means factoring it into our core general insurance, fund management and life assurance businesses as well as into our internal operations.
General insurance
Setting fair prices
In general insurance, we recognise that responsibility means setting the most accurate price for our customers. One means of ensuring this is via our revolutionary digital flood map in the UK, which started to be rolled out in 2004 and which models the risk of flooding for individual addresses. This could lead to as many as 600,000 more homes and businesses in the UK qualifying for insurance through Norwich Union Insurance.
Moving beyond financial recompense
In some of our markets, such as Canada and the UK, rehabilitation has become central to the motor claims handling process. The claims process is no longer purely about financial recompense but also aimed at helping road traffic accident victims who have sustained injuries to return to all their normal activities of daily living in the shortest time. We aim to provide injured parties with high quality injury assessment, diagnosis, and the provision of optimum evidence-based treatment devised by an expert panel.
Helping younger drivers
In the UK, Norwich Union Insurance is also providing more affordable insurance for young drivers in return for driving at safer times of the day through piloting a new and innovative product using telematics black box technology. This usage-based product discourages using the vehicle between 11pm and 6am when statistics prove that young drivers are 10 times more likely to have a serious accident.
Life assurance
Understanding customers‘ needs
One of the responsibility challenges in life assurance is to help customers secure their financial futures and to differentiate ourselves by the level and quality of support we provide to them. To achieve this in the UK, Norwich Union Life has initiated a process excellence programme focused around understanding its customers’ needs and then refining the processes to deliver what they require. Last year it engaged over 1,000 of its employees to deliver significant improvements to the customer experience.
Responsible selling
Norwich Union Life has procedures to ensure that pension sales made by its representatives are subject to checking by its quality assurance unit. This mandatory checking is carried out on "higher risk" contracts, while "lower risk" contracts are checked on a random basis. In addition, the sales compliance guide and sales training manuals explain the correct methodology for the sale of pension products. This backs up the training given to all representatives on training courses. Finally, certain types of pension sales, such as opt outs from employer sponsored pension arrangements, are not permitted.
Extending the reach of insurance
Another challenge is to extend the reach of insurance and, in India, for example, we achieve this by offering a variety of low premium products for those from economically underprivileged backgrounds.
Fund management
Responsible investment
In our fund management business, we practise responsible investment in three principal ways. Firstly, we offer specialist SRI funds, administered by an experienced team. Secondly, the SRI team has a mandate to engage with all of Morley Fund Management’s assets under management.
This involves talking to companies about issues such as environment, human rights, health and safety and corporate governance and encouraging them to improve their management of these issues. Thirdly, Morley has a pro-active voting policy, voting against companies that have poor corporate governance practices or do not provide adequate disclosure of their management of key social, environmental and ethical issues.
Internal operations
Keeping our own house in order
As a major purchaser, we can – and do – use our leverage to encourage improved CSR performance amongst our suppliers. An example, practised by some of our businesses, is the inclusion of CSR questions in the supplier tendering process. Further, our internal operations also play a leading role in minimising the direct environmental impacts of our business. This is done in a number of ways, including increasing our use of renewables-sourced energy.
How we develop CSR
We have a clearly incremental approach to building our CSR programme for several reasons. Firstly, the capacity of any business to absorb change is limited. Firm roots take time to grow and time must be allowed for the embedding of CSR, which is underpinned by communication and training. This is a gradual process and must be driven by each business at a pace with which it is comfortable. Secondly, our businesses around the world operate in very different circumstances. For instance, they vary in size from 45 employees to 13,000. Further, local understanding of CSR varies greatly from country to country. So whilst all our businesses are headed in the same direction in respect of CSR, they start at different points and move at different speeds, determined by size and local circumstance.