 01 What is our goal?To double the number of customers from 7.5 million in 2010 to 15 million in 2020. |
 02 How will we achieve this goal?By focusing on our core business as a primary insurer in our core markets of Austria and CEE. |
 03 Where do we intend to improve in our core business?
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 04 What do we need to achieve this?
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 05 Why is this attractive for our shareholders?Because we intend to improve EBT by up to € 400 million between 2010 and 2015. |
1. Doubling the number of customers
We intend to double the number of our customers from 7.5 million in 2010 to 15 million by 2020. We attracted 0.6 million new customers in 2013 and had a total of 9.3 million customers in our 19 countries at year-end.
2. Focusing on core business
To achieve our customer target, we are focusing on what we do best: our core business as a primary insurer in our key markets of Austria and CEE. We have sold equity holdings that do not fit this strategy, such as our media investments and the Mannheimer Group in 2012 and the Austria Hotels International Group in 2013.
3. Implementing four key programmes
We have developed four key programmes that will bring about lasting improvements to our core business and help us to achieve our earnings target:
a. UNIQA Austria – increase profitability
For UNIQA Austria, we have set ourselves the target of significantly increasing profitability by optimising structures and processes, thereby improving our customer service and cost efficiency. In 2013, we increased the number of local service centres to 410. We also combined the back office functions of eleven sites to form three central service centres at five locations. As a result, we have created more streamlined processes while simultaneously relieving our local customer advisors of activities relating to direct customer service.
b. Raiffeisen Insurance Austria – improve productivity
Raiffeisen Insurance is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UNIQA that is active in the segment of bank assurance in Austria. It sells its products exclusively through the Raiffeisen banking group, which operates by far the largest network of bank branches in Austria. Raiffeisen Insurance has set itself the target of significantly improving productivity over the coming years. This approach started to bear fruit in 2013: premiums in the Raiffeisen Insurance segment again outperformed the market by some distance, increasing by 7.2 per cent as a result of the intensified cooperation with the Raiffeisen banks. We are continuing to work intensively on ensuring that Raiffeisen Insurance’s products and processes are geared even more specifically towards the needs of the Raiffeisen banks and their customers.
c. UNIQA International – grow profitably
UNIQA International, which encompasses our subsidiaries outside Austria, has the aim of growing considerably above the market rate in CEE on a sustained basis with a focus on profitability and value. Premiums in the UNIQA International segment increased by 11.3 per cent in 2013. We further expanded our market share in 13 of 15 CEE countries. The acquisition of the Baloise Group’s insurance companies in Croatia and Serbia in the first quarter of 2014 allowed us to considerably strengthen our good market position within the Southeastern European region as a whole. This acquisition also supports one of UNIQA International’s strategic projects, namely the implementation of a target operating model in Southeastern Europe. The aim of the project is to establish a uniform, standardised business model for all countries in the CEE region, with customer-oriented processes and a transparent structure. Through this, UNIQA International intends to leverage cross-border synergies, significantly improve cost efficiency and improve its customer service.
Much like in Austria, our focus in the CEE region is on close cooperation with the banking industry to increase sales through banks. We are working to further increase our market share in particular by cooperating with our preferred strategic partner, Raiffeisen Bank International, which operates the largest branch network of a western bank in CEE, consisting of more than 3,000 branches. In Italy, we have an extremely close cooperation with the Veneto Banca group in the area of life insurance sales.
In 2013, we advised 60 per cent of our customers and generated 24 per cent of Group premiums in our core market in the CEE region. Our aim is to generate 50 per cent of Group premiums and 30 to 40 per cent of consolidated profit in the CEE region by 2020.
d. Risk management – control risk
The Solvency II project introduces new supervisory and capitalisation requirements aimed at establishing an end-to-end system for overall solvency. These requirements must be implemented by 1 January 2016. UNIQA welcomes the introduction of Solvency II and has taken considerable efforts ever since its announcement, thereby ensuring that it was already extremely well prepared for the new standards in 2013. We further reduced the risk exposure on our balance sheet in 2013. As part of our strategic investment policy, investments in shares, private equity and hedge funds were reduced, and the capital freed up as a result was invested in stable, high-yield bonds. At the same time, we continued to close the gap between the term of our assets and our actuarial liabilities through strict asset liability management. Both measures have led to an improvement in the economic solvency ratio. Although UNIQA has now achieved a comfortable risk and equity position, it will continue to work systematically on the introduction of Solvency II across all segments of the Group in 2014.
4. Strengthening the equity base
We achieved two extremely important strategic milestones in 2013: Having created a new, clear Group structure with no significant minority interests in late 2012 and prepared ourselves systematically, in October 2013 we were able to successfully complete the re-IPO that was announced back in 2011. The gross issue proceeds of € 757 million strengthened our equity considerably and created strategic flexibility for further growth, as well as increasing the free float and hence the liquidity of UNIQA’s shares. As a result, UNIQA was included in Vienna’s leading stock exchange index, the ATX, in March 2014. This means that we are now one of the 20 largest and most traded listed companies in Austria.
5. Improving earnings
In 2011, we set ourselves the concrete target of increasing our EBT to up to € 550 million by 2015. Our aim for 2013 was to generate EBT in excess of € 300 million. We have achieved this target; at € 306 million, we are 49.7 per cent above the figure generated in 2012.
