OUR MATERIAL ISSUES

Each year, we identify the material issues which could affect our ability to achieve our strategy, or deliver on our purpose.

We engage with a wide range of stakeholders to identify issues that are important to our customers, employees, partners, shareholders and the communities in which we operate. We then prioritise these issues based on their potential to affect our business performance, the areas where we can make the greatest positive impact, and their importance to our stakeholders.

Based on these assessments, our material issues for 2017 were:

Customer and partner experience

Meeting the evolving needs of our customers and partners is critical to our long-term success. We aim to make the experiences customers and partners have with us world class, through technology, smart ideas and the way they interact with us. To do this, we are shifting from being a product-centred organisation to one that places the whole of customer needs at the forefront of our decision making. We recognise that our customers and partners also have great ideas and capabilities, and we are reconfiguring our business to harness those.

Access and affordability

Many people do not have adequate insurance cover for reasons ranging from affordability issues, to a lack of understanding of their needs, or a lack of suitable insurance products. The increasing frequency of extreme weather is also affecting the affordability and accessibility of insurance. Non-insurance and under-insurance reduce our customers’ ability to recover from adverse events, which can affect the ability of whole communities to recover. IAG is seeking to address this issue by developing new products, through expanded levels of cover and by advocating for increased investment in disaster mitigation.

Organisational culture aligned to purpose

A strong organisational culture is a key ingredient for us to achieve sustained commercial success and deliver on our purpose. Our culture must ensure we connect our teams to create solutions that will benefit our customers, communities and shareholders. We continue to build trust in our organisation by being authentic in the way we communicate and run our business. By maintaining high standards of ethics, we will create a culture where customers trust that we will deliver on our purpose and our promise to them, and we will inspire meaningful work and a shared sense of purpose for our people.

Future-focused innovation

In a disrupted and changing world, we must continue to adapt and evolve our business model to ensure we remain relevant. Responding to and anticipating the future needs of our customers through innovation and product development are critical for our business sustainability. We want to lead the change that's happening in the lives of our customers and in our industry. Our ability to achieve these goals depends on our ability to become an agile organisation, embracing agile ways of working as well as simplifying processes and systems to remove complexity from our business.

Community
resilience

Building community resilience is vital to reducing the cost of the increasing risk to lives, livelihoods and property. Improving understanding of the risks people face is critical to improving safety on our roads, in our homes and in businesses. Resilient communities are better prepared and recover more quickly, which results in fewer claims and lower costs for our business, and safer, stronger and more confident communities.

Climate change and natural perils

Every year our customers are affected by natural disasters and IAG pays millions of dollars in claims to help them recover. Climate change is having an impact on the frequency and severity of natural perils which poses a significant challenge to the insurance industry, and the communities we support. We believe we have a role to play in using our knowledge of risk to help customers, partners and communities understand and manage the changing risk environment, build resilience and navigate the transition to a low carbon economy.

Financial performance

Managing our financial performance sustainably is critical to our long-term success and our ability to deliver value to our shareholders and other key stakeholders. Details of our financial performance are contained throughout this annual review.