Compliance
As a responsible company, we consider compliance with all relevant legal regulations, internal company policies, and ethical principles essential for the UNIQA Group. This conviction is based on the awareness that the insurance business fundamentally relies on trust. Compliance risks, such as corruption and bribery, carry potential economic and legal consequences. Even the mere suspicion of corruption and bribery can lead to reputational damage and the loss of trust from business partners and customers. Therefore, responsible behaviour is the foundation of our actions.
Group Compliance
The UNIQA Group's principles associated with sustainability - not only developing value-enhancing strategies, but also assuming responsibility in economic, social and ecological terms – form the basis for a clear and transparent governance system.
Compliance and the UNIQA Code of Conduct, which applies throughout the Group, not only fulfil the legal requirements, but are also essential components of the corporate culture.
The requirements placed on these systems are documented in defined guidelines (policies) and apply to the UNIQA Group as an internal set of rules
Compliance
‘Compliance’ refers to adherence to legal and regulatory requirements as well as values, principles and internal regulations to which a company voluntarily commits itself. Because not everything that is legal is also legitimate. It is about transparency, business practices with integrity and practised business ethics. We create clarity through binding rules of conduct for all areas of our day-to-day work and support all UNIQA Group employees in "living" these principles and rules in practice.
Under Solvency II and the Law on the Supervision of Insurance Undertakings (Versicherungsaufsichtsgesetz), every (re)insurance company must establish a Compliance function. Compliance is one of the four key functions and must fulfil the following key tasks:
- Consultation of the Management Board with regard to the compliance of regulations applicable for operating policy-based insurance companies,
- Assessment of the potential repercussions that changes to the legal environment would have on the activities of insurance or reinsurance companies and
- Identification and assessment of the risks associated with non-compliance of legal requirements (compliance risk).
In practice, our tasks include:
- Implementing the compliance risk analysis across all company areas and determining whether there is a risk of non-compliance with legal regulations as well as defining measures to minimise risk.
- Reporting to the Management Board, Supervisory Board and Risk Committee.
- Developing and optimising various compliance tools and their practical implementation.
- Providing advice on applicable legal regulations and supporting their implementation within the company.
- Providing advice to staff on questions relating to the UNIQA Code of Conduct.
- The definition and implementation of internal regulations on authorisation and reporting obligations for donations as an effective measure to prevent corruption, as well as measures to combat corruption.
Our international activities include:
- Managing compliance in the UNIQA Group.
- Supporting international business units in the implementation of the Compliance program and the establishment of the compliance culture
- Ensuring uniform minimum standards in the UNIQA Group through the development and introduction of internal compliance guidelines.
- Umsetzung einheitlicher Compliance-Vorgaben und des Compliance-Reportings in allen anwendbaren Gesellschaften der UNIQA Group.
In the international business units, local compliance officers are responsible for the operational implementation and monitoring of key compliance issues in the respective Group companies as part of the local compliance function. The specific design of the compliance organisation depends on the size and structure of the respective company as well as the national legal requirements. Compliance at UNIQA is therefore always locally implemented.