Along with a number of other financial institutions, Achmea was committed to the Dutch Climate Agreement in 2019. In the same year, Achmea announced that it would no longer be investing in businesses that generated more than 30% of their revenue from coal or from the extraction of oil from tar sands. In making this announcement, Achmea wanted to send a signal to the largest polluters that they needed to take action.

[image] Five of the nine insurers surveyed scored only one satisfactory for their investment policy on 21 social issues

Willem van Duin, Chairman of Achmea’s Executive Board: “Achmea wants to contribute to a healthy, safe and future-proof society. That’s why I’m happy with our good scores in the Fair Insurance Guide, particularly when it comes to climate change. As an insurer, we are seeing an increase in the losses suffered by our customers as a result of extreme weather. Our investment policy aims to make a substantial contribution to the transition to a climate-neutral economy. In 2019, we took concrete steps in this direction. So, it’s great to see that our climate score in particular is up two points on last year’s score.”

Encouragement to do more
In spite of our good performance, we believe that there is still scope to put our operations and investment policy on a more sustainable footing. Van Duin: “We’re continuing to work hard to make a bigger social impact with our investments and our engagement programme plays an important role in this. We will use this programme to talk to companies and encourage them to make their operations more responsible.”

About Achmea’s investments

Achmea is a large insurer and pension fund manager and as such is a large investor. We invest the funds we receive from our insurance operations, such as premiums, on a proprietary basis. In addition, we invest the assets that customers entrust to us via Achmea’s own asset manager, Achmea Investment Management. These include the pension fund assets we manage or the assets of our customers’ investment accounts. We invest the insurance premiums and pension contributions from our customers and as a group we manage assets of more than €140 billion.

About the Fair Insurance Guide

The Fair Insurance Guide is a joint venture with Amnesty International, FNV, Milieudefensie, Oxfam Novib, PAX and World Animal Protection. The Fair Insurance Guide shows the extent to which the investments of insurers contribute to a socially just and sustainable world. The aim is to make the investment policy of insurers more sustainable and to align investments and business operations accordingly. The underlying aim is for insurers to use their financial and other influence to encourage the businesses in which they invest to contribute to a sustainable and socially just world.

Throughout 2019, VBDO examined the sustainability profile of thirty insurers and fifty pension funds. The investigation shone a spotlight on policy, implementation, management and transparency of sustainable investment.

As a large institutional investor with managed assets of more than €140 billion, Achmea has an influence on the companies it invests in. Last spring, Achmea tightened up its corporate responsibility policy and implemented further improvements. Climate is the key element in this. For example, Achmea recently announced that it would no longer invest in companies that generate more than 30% of their revenue from coal or from the extraction of oil from tar sands. The tightening of our policy follows the signing of the Paris climate goals and the ambitions of the government in this regard. Achmea has also committed itself to the Climate Agreement in the past year.

Willem van Duin, Chairman of Achmea’s Executive Board: “The fact that we were the second highest ranking insurer is on the one hand a great performance, but on the other it is above all an encouragement to continue as a socially responsible investor. As a cooperative insurer, we focus on long-term value creation and sustainable trading and investment is perfectly aligned with this. We aim to make a greater social impact with our investments. Our engagement programme, which involves us engaging actively with companies and entering into agreements to encourage them to operate their businesses more responsibly, is an important contribution to this.”

You can find the full report here.