More success: The VIG 25 strategic programme

The VIG Group has defined a strategic programme for the next five years. More efficiency, more customer proximity and more value added prepare the ground for more sustainable success.

VIG 25 – simply explained

The management of VIG Holding developed the VIG 25 strategic programme for 2021 to 2025 together with the CEOs of the Group companies. Building on the successful Agenda 2020, it is helping to achieve the Company's strategic objectives, namely expanding its leading market position in the CEE region, creating sustainable value and achieving sustainability objectives in the areas of society, customers and employees.

A world undergoing radical change

An analysis of the most important trends and developments and their effects on the insurance industry was the starting point for the new strategic programme.

Trends and developments

Evolution instead of revolution

New technical solutions and digital developments related to the insurance business will not unfold their effects immediately, but continuously. New players, such as InsurTechs, are driving innovation and improving business models in the established insurance industry in the course of cooperations. The VIG Group must therefore continue and further intensify its efforts to achieve a digital transformation across the entire Group and continue its systematic search for new ideas and supporting technologies.

Low interest rate environment

The low level of real interest rates is likely to continue over the coming years, thereby decreasing income and increasing cost pressure. The VIG Group must become even more efficient and productive in order to counteract this.

Increasing regulations and interest group demands

The insurance sector is already one of the most strictly regulated and supervised sectors in the EU. Many new regulations are coming. The new EU taxonomy for sustainable investments is just one example. Interest groups and opinion makers are also increasing their efforts to draw public attention to their concerns and place them on company agendas.

Customer access is key

Digitalisation has changed customer expectations and behaviour. Millennials and Generation Z in particular, i.e. everyone born since 1980, prefer a high level of flexibility and custom-tailored products that can be accessed any time and anywhere. Insurance companies have to better understand the needs of younger generations and increasingly implement hybrid forms of distribution that combine personal and digital communication.

Erosion of insurance as a stand-alone product

Insurance solutions are increasingly becoming an integral part of other products or services, especially in the area of non-life insurance. As a result, insurance is disappearing as a separate product in some areas. Credit cards, for example, automatically include travel insurance coverage.

Digital platforms and ecosystems

New ways to approach customers are becoming increasingly important. Platforms, generally operated by a non-insurance provider, are one example. Insurance companies can benefit from the existing customer base of such platforms and offer products and solutions that provide added value. Ecosystems, in turn, offer customers a range of services related to a certain basic need, such as housing or healthcare. The VIG Group wants to approach and retain customers by offering attractive solutions for such needs, while remaining visible under its own brand. Cooperations with companies from other sectors are becoming more important.

Latent demand for risk protection

Consumers and companies often do not recognise their own needs for risk protection and insurance solutions. This can have especially serious consequences for customers if an event occurs that could have been covered by long-term products such as life and health insurance. Insurance companies must therefore help people better understand the importance of risk provisions and possible risk management solutions, so that they recognise their individual needs for provisions and obtain timely coverage.

The requirements

The analysis revealed a number of basic requirements that the Group must satisfy in order to successfully achieve sustainable development.

  • Strengthening sustainability as an integral part of the business model
  • Further increasing the efficiency and productivity of business operations, thereby continuing and intensifying the digital transformation
  • Developing new ways to approach and retain customers in order to respond to changing consumer expectations and behaviours
  • Promoting consumer understanding of the importance of risk provisions

Strategic focus areas in three horizons

In response to the trends and requirements, the VIG Group will optimise, enhance and expand its business model through targeted activities in three strategic focus areas and thereby ensuring more efficiency, more customer proximity and more value added.

  • More efficiency
  • Optimise the business model by increasing productivity and efficiency
    • Process simplification and automation
    • Exchange and implement best practice examples
    • Further optimise underwriting and pricing
  • More customer proximity
  • Enhance the business model with new ways to approach customers and by enriching the product range with services that provide additional value for customers
    • Increase brand visibility and the attractiveness of products
    • Use of a hybrid distribution approach that combines personal and digital contact
  • More value added
  • Expand the business model and value chain beyond the insurance business
    • Focus on asset management and the pension fund business
    • Establish ecosystems
    • Promote awareness of precaution and risk protection