In insurance and advisory

Swiss Life offers its customers a wide range of solutions for their financial security and future provisions. Their term often extends over many years or even decades. Taking sustainability into account in product design and underwriting is therefore crucial.

As a life insurance company and based on the markets in which it operates, Swiss Life considers the climate-related risks in underwriting to be fairly low. When investing customer assets, Swiss Life recognises opportunities as well as risks.

Swiss Life has products with integrated sustainability aspects in various markets. For example, Swiss Life in Switzerland offers the digitalised Pando pillar 3a solution based on transparent investment portfolios. These are geared towards consistently sustainable investments with the aim of making a positive contribution to the common good. The „Environment” investment theme can be selected for the Swiss Life Premium Delegate Prime asset management mandate. It contains investment funds that pursue dedicated environmental objectives in addition to financial objectives. In the area of unit-linked life insurance, for example, the Investo pension insurance at Swiss Life Germany includes a “Green” option. Depending on the client’s fund selection, various ecological and/or social characteristics are supported while good corporate governance practices are respected at the same time.

In particular, Swiss Life seeks to ensure that consideration of climate-related risks and opportunities is a growing part of its business development. Swiss Life therefore develops climate-conscious and innovative products, taking into account the individual needs and preferences of its clients.

A number of divisions in the Swiss Life Group have launched local products with sustainability aspects in recent years. ESG factors are also incorporated into the advisory processes via these products and solutions. In 2022, Swiss Life increasingly integrated the relevant sustainability aspects – and with that climate aspects as well –into its advisory process and its marketing and sales documents. In doing so, the company is also meeting customers’ growing expectations. Swiss Life advisors therefore have an important role to play: they support customers in realising their needs and visions of sustainability.

Swiss Life is integrating (potential) customers’ individual sustainability preferences directly into the advisory processes and instruments in its EU-based divisions in accordance with the respective regulatory requirements via a questionnaire. In this way, the company is ensuring that advisors carry out the aptitude test to identify sustainability preferences and enable (potential) customers to make decisions on the basis of sound information. To develop the relevant advisory competencies, Swiss Life has introduced a range of training measures. In Germany, for example, these consist of several digital training modules that can be visited on the eCampus, the training centre operated by Swiss Life. With this ambition, Swiss Life is also meeting the regulatory requirements of the European Union. Initial experience with querying customers’ preferences shows that sustainable financial products and solutions meet an exis­ting customer demand. In Switzerland, too, Swiss Life is working on the “sustainability prefe­rences query” process and on integrating it into advisory processes and instruments.

Further information can be found in the Sustainability Report (section “Sustainability in Insurance and Advisory”).