Transparent lobbying

Hannover Re is committed and a constructive participant in the public debate on (re)insurance issues that affect us. Our policy is to be transparent about our activities and our commitments, in line with applicable laws, Hannover Re’s Corporate Responsibility commitments in our Sustainability Strategy as well as our Code of Conduct.

We have a policy of speaking with one voice, ensuring that our company gives clear and congruent messages across all geographies and levels of the company on the topics that we are engaged in. In order to ensure this we coordinate lobbying messages at a worldwide level to ensure alignment of messages and goals.

As per our code of conduct, Hannover Re abides by the law and competes in the market in a lawful and fair manner. We do not offer public authorities, civil servants, or other officials and representatives of public organisations gifts or invitations nor payments or other advantages of any kind.

Recently, our main focus concentrates on the following topics:

Prudential

Hannover Re engages in discussions on new and updated prudential regulations in order to ensure that these represent an economic and risk-based assessment of risks. We pay particular attention to:

• The need to adequately reflect the diversification of risks and geographies, through the use of an internal model where warranted
• The ability to recognise reinsurance from a capital perspective for cedents
• Convergence in worldwide regulatory practices.

Governance & Reporting

Hannover Re manages its risks as they affect our different risk categories and we report sustainability information as per our obligations and commitments. We act to ensure that reporting standards are informative, relevant, and at a reasonable cost in time and expense to the reporting companies. We strive for simple effective governance structures in accordance with the applicable regulation.

Trade barriers

As an internationally active reinsurer, we defend open access to international reinsurance markets across all geographies. Unfettered access to reinsurance is in our view essential for the development of strong, amply capitalised insurance markets, key to closing the insurance protection gap, and thereby ensuring resilient economic growth. This principle is just as relevant for our “home” markets in Germany/the EU as it is around the world.

Sustainability

We take our commitments to our clients and the communities in which we are present seriously. We have committed to ensuring Net-Zero emissions across our underwriting and investments activities (by 2050), as well as from our own operations (by 2030). We are mindful of ensuring that new regulation is conducive to these objectives while being appropriate to the reinsurance business model, proportionate to the size and complexity of our business, and appropriately balancing the interests of different stakeholders.

Digitalisation and operational resilience

As an innovative company, we strive to ensure that our technology maximises our clients’ satisfaction while ensuring high levels of operational efficiency and reliability. We closely monitor regulation to identify risks to our innovation projects and goals.

We are a member of numerous regional, national and global associations, interest groups and organisations. Our employees take part in working groups on various topics and contribute their specialist knowledge to relevant discussions, including to sustainability issues. A non-exhaustive list comprising the most relevant organisations for our regulatory engagement activities can be found below. In each case it should be noted that much of our engagement with the associations is for purposes other than lobbying, and several of the associations are not primarily concerned with lobbying activities.

The total spending on the memberships noted above during the financial year 2021 comprised EUR 392,068.

Our governance

Our coordinated engagement with regulators and policymakers at the HR Group level is the responsibility of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO), which delegates certain responsibilities for coordination and execution to the Regulatory Affairs and Risk Reporting team as well as to branch and legal entity CRO’s.

To be as transparent for the public as possible, the parent company of Hannover Re Group, Hannover Rück SE, registered on the Transparency Register (europa.eu) of the European Parliament and European Commission with number 111538041439-74. Lobbying costs, memberships and focal points are displayed. E+S Rückversicherung AG is registered in the German Lobbyregister with the number R002484.