Social matters

In this section, we will look at how societal and social issues affect our business activities and relationships, and vice versa. In particular, we will explain the concepts we have in place to deal with social activities and sponsorships, customer focus and innovative services and products as well as data protection. In our view, employee matters are social matters, which is why we have also included and outlined the relevant concepts here as a sub-section.

Negative macroeconomic trends pose a risk to UNIQA’s business model. We are committed to pursing the UNIQA 3.0 corporate strategy so that we can mitigate these risks and contribute to achieving social prosperity.

Social activities and sponsoring

As Austria’s largest health insurer, we focus our social engagement on health and education. Our UNIQA 3.0 corporate strategy also describes our view of the world. We use this to identify the key social risks and requirements for how we conduct ourselves. One of our main focal points is supporting young or disadvantaged people. UNIQA also places all kinds of emphasis on supporting general interest initiatives. Promoting the arts and sports are important focal points here in all of our markets. This ranges from long-term sponsorship to support for individual projects with which we can identify based on our corporate values.

Our accession to the Initiative for Transparent Cooperation (Initiative für transparente Zusammenarbeit) demonstrates that we are committed to open dealings with NGOs, associations and sponsorships. In implementing the initiative’s Code of Transparent Cooperation, we aim to give the public a clear insight into which NGOs we are working with, explain how and why we are committed to them, and seek feedback from our stakeholders on how they assess our engagement.

We continued to develop our approach to social matters in 2022 by revising our strategy and implementing guidelines to ensure our sponsorships are ESG-compliant. In doing so, we followed the DNSH principle (Do No Significant Harm), which requires all sponsorships to fulfil at least one of the ESG criteria. Furthermore, our partners must be able to provide credible evidence of sustainable action or at least present their sustainability concept for sponsorship amounts in excess of a certain figure. The UNIQA sponsorship strategy was published on the UNIQA Group website in 2022.

Activities undertaken in 2022 included:

KURIER Aid Austria educational facilities: Supporting deprived children and young people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds in order to help them enjoy independent learning under their own initiative.

Mobile Caritas Hospice (Mobiles Caritas Hospiz): The Day Hospice and the Mobile Caritas Hospice offer companionship, care and welfare in familiar surroundings for people in the final days of their lives.

Mountain Rescue Service (Österr. Bergrettungsdienst): Supporting the 13,000 volunteer rescuers who look after and assist people when they encounter difficulties in the mountains.

One particular highlight was supporting the collaboration between UNIQA Stiftung and the Special Olympics Austria (SOÖ) for the SOÖ Summer Games. The Games were held in Oberwart in summer 2022, with around 1,800 athletes participating.