IAG has a long track record of helping people recover from natural disasters, accidents and loss. However our role extends beyond creating insurance policies and paying claims, to helping communities understand and manage risk, reduce it and build resilience. This is why, over the last two years, we have broadened our focus beyond sustainability and community partnerships to embed a shared value approach within our strategy and business. Creating shared value means finding the intersection between a social problem and a business opportunity. Helping solve the problem creates value for the community and aligns to our strategy to use our scale to create long term value for our customers, partners, employees, shareholders and the community.

We acknowledge that there can be negative perceptions about aspects of the insurance industry, and that we do not have all the answers, or always get it right. However, we have put stakeholders at the core of our business strategy and recognise we need to work in partnership to meet their ever-increasing expectations. Our Vision at IAG is to create Asia Pacific’s most loved, most inventive and most successful insurer. We will only achieve this if we transfer our deep understanding of risk to the communities in which we operate. By improving risk awareness and supporting behavioural change we can reduce loss; this reduces our cost of claims and increases profitability. We can pass that back to our shareholders or reinvest it to reduce the cost of insurance or build more resilient communities. The virtuous circle continues.

To deliver shared value we focus on the value we are seeking to create in the community through three pillars – Safer, Stronger and More Confident – supported by eight focus areas where we believe IAG is best positioned to have a positive influence.

Safer

It all starts with safer: we believe we can all be safer, whether at work, at home or on our roads.

Safer at work
Making the world safer starts with our people. Workplace injuries, poor health and low levels of mental well-being affect engagement and productivity, with organisation-wide impacts. Our safety record has improved with a 46%1 reduction in lost-time injuries in the last 12 months.

We also play an integral role in helping customers with workplace injuries to recover as quickly as possible. Over the past year our CGU Workers’ Compensation team has created a Customer Lab where our people can share injured workers’ stories and prototype customer service improvements; this enables them to have a deeper understanding, and greater empathy for the personal impact of, workplace incidents. This renewed customer focus strengthened CGU’s performance in the Victorian WorkSafe Injured Worker Survey, creating value for injured workers and their businesses.

Safer at home
Severe weather accounts for almost half of the home claims we receive on Australia’s east coast. It is always our aim to repair homes and restore customers’ lives as quickly as possible. While we know for some it is never quick enough, we continued to focus on faster claims resolution in 2015 as we responded to the largest volume of claims in more than 15 years. Our ability to mobilise resources rapidly saw us lodge and manage claims from the April east coast low, with 45,000 claims finalised in 90 days. We also responded rapidly to help rebuild the lives of customers affected by events such as the South Australian bushfires and Tropical Cyclone Marcia.

We are committed to helping customers identify and reduce risks so they are safer and more secure in their homes. Fewer risks means fewer claims, more affordable premiums and a safer community. We partner with the ACT, NSW and Queensland State Emergency Services (SES) to support community recovery and provide education on disaster preparation. In 2015, the NSW SES StormSafe education program resulted in over 2,000 people downloading the Stormsafe app and 28% of NSW households surveyed said they had a plan for when storms hit, compared to 20% the previous year.

Safer on our roads
Over the last decade, road fatalities in Australia have fallen by 28%, partly due to safer vehicles. However, more than 1,000 people continue to die on our roads each year and more than 32,000 are seriously injured, so there is still much more to be done. IAG is the only insurer in Australia to invest in its own Research Centre. We conduct and share research on a range of vehicles with a focus on safety, security and repair costs. We also review our claims data to inform road safety initiatives.

IAG has also introduced insurance discounts to encourage car makers and consumers to take up Autonomous Emergency Braking and is piloting Advanced Road Warning Signs in New Zealand.

Stronger

Safer leads to stronger: when people are safer they create businesses and communities that are stronger and more resilient.

Responsible business
Businesses have a responsibility to act ethically and safely and to minimise their impact on society and the environment. Although we do not have all the answers we are committed to working with our stakeholders, including those we purchase products and services from, to play an important and responsible role in society.

This means recognising the impact of climate change on communities and on our business as an insurer. We have maintained our Group carbon neutrality and entered into a two-year agreement with the New Zealand Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority. We also now require our Exclusive Smash Repairers to be accredited by IAG’s EcoSmash environmental program. Globally, we support the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative Principles for Sustainable Insurance and the Geneva Association’s Climate Risk Statement.

IAG also proudly embraces an inclusive and diverse workplace. Women hold 31.5% of senior management roles across the Group, and 33.3% in our businesses in Australia and New Zealand. While our Group result is not quite at the goal we set in 2010 to have 33% of senior management roles filled by women this year, we have improved significantly from the 27% we reported in 201, and we are working to improve this, including by introducing training to reduce unconscious bias in recruitment. We recently established an onsite school holiday program, Kids@IAG, to help parents manage work and family; and expressed our support for marriage equality in Australia.

Resilience to natural perils
The Australian Government currently spends an estimated $560 million each year on disaster recovery. In contrast, it invests around $50 million each year in mitigation to improve community resilience. For every $10 spent on post-disaster recovery, only $1 is spent on preventative measures to improve the safety of communities.

Through our membership of the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience & Safer Communities, IAG is sharing its risk management expertise with government to influence programs and policies to help make Australia more resilient to natural disasters (see Shared Value In Action).

To this end IAG is one of the few insurers in our region to have an in-house natural perils team, which focuses on climate data and customer impacts.

Business resilience
Resilient businesses are at the heart of strong and resilient communities. This is particularly evident in rural and regional Australia, where farmers and growers contend with weather, environmental risks, market forces and, often, remoteness. IAG consulted extensively with rural customers last year to better understand how we can support them and we are now developing partnerships to support more sustainable farming and improve access to medical advice.

More confident

Safer and stronger leads to more confident: when people are covered by insurance and risk is managed well they have the certainty and confidence to prosper.

Access and affordability solutions
Without adequate insurance cover individuals and businesses struggle to recover from adverse events, which affects their livelihood and contribution to their community. IAG is committed to ensuring insurance cover remains accessible and affordable, so individuals and communities can be confident of recovering quickly from adverse events.

In cyclone-prone Far North Queensland, our Strata Affordability project has delivered improved risk management and cost savings to strata property owners.

We also continue to explore ways to tailor products to meet customers’ needs at different life stages. We have engaged extensively with consumers and community groups and conducted our own research to identify segments where affordability is creating the most pressure. In response, we are developing and piloting a suite of products. InsureLite, the first of these pilot products, was launched in Queensland in June 2015 to give households struggling with affordability more options to protect their homes.

Social resilience
Community resilience has become a critical focus for disaster management globally and locally. Connected communities with engaged residents are more likely to be better prepared for, and better equipped to recover from, major events. That is why IAG is exploring new ways to create more resilient communities.

We are working with selected communities affected by disasters to identify how we can better support rebuilding and improve resilience to future events. In Rockhampton, for example, we are working with local government on the costs and benefits of flood mitigation measures.

Through our Reconciliation Action Plan, we believe we can play an important part in building social resilience within Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (see Shared Value In Action).