The Company: Vienna Insurance Group

The Vienna Insurance Group is one of the largest listed international insurance groups in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The Group, headquartered in Vienna, operates around 50 insurance companies in 23 countries and has approximately 24,000 employees. The insurance companies of the Vienna Insurance Group offer high-quality insurance services in both the life and non-life segments. Their main objective is to provide innovative insurance solutions for all areas of life and top-quality customer service in all markets.

Leading position in the CEE region

In 1990, the Vienna Insurance Group became the first Western insurance company to make a move into the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Since then, the Vienna Insurance Group has continuously expanded its involvement in the region in pursuit of its goals.

Its clear, focused internationalisation strategy in the CEE economic region gave it the boost needed to move from being a national insurance company to an international group of companies.

The Vienna Insurance Group now participates in 23 markets, extending from Estonia in the north to Turkey in the south. It is one of the leading international insurance groups doing business in Central and Eastern Europe.

Clear strategic orientation

The Vienna Insurance Group's international focus on Central and Eastern Europe is aimed at achieving long-term steady growth in premiums and earnings. In addition to strengthening its market-leading position in Austria, the goals of the Vienna Insurance Group therefore also include an expansion of its insurance business in Central and Eastern Europe. The focus in this expansion will be on organic growth of the insurance companies. The Vienna Insurance Group has followed a clear strategy of value-oriented growth for many years, with a central focus on being a leader. The Vienna Insurance Group is already one of the market leaders in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia and Ukraine.

One of the key factors in the Vienna Insurance Group's success in strengthening its market position is its multi-brand strategy, which relies on the power of proven brand names with a long tradition in all markets. The Group also takes advantage of its excellent access to customers by utilising multi-channel distribution, making systematic use of synergies, and diversifying risk broadly.

The experience and solid market knowledge gained by the Vienna Insurance Group over the past 20 years is applied continuously to the Group's insurance business, which is broadly diversified across countries, distribution channels and products. The unwavering path followed by the Group has led to similar strength in the structure of the business, which in turn is reflected in an excellent rating from Standard & Poor's (A+, stable outlook).

Stability during difficult times

The importance of a broad geographical market base becomes particularly clear during difficult economic times. The differences in economic momentum among different countries have a balanced effect on the Vienna Insurance Group. As a result, the Vienna Insurance Group achieved outstanding performance and successfully continued its growth in 2009, in spite of the currently difficult economic situation. The Vienna Insurance Group stands for financial stability, offering its customers a high level of security in the present as well as in the future. Based on its knowledge of insurance markets in the CEE region, the Vienna Insurance Group feels that these markets, which are not yet saturated compared to Western Europe, are likely to continue showing growth rates above those for Western Europe over coming years.

Our employees are our path to success

The Group's shared success across all of its markets has been made possible by the dedicated, entrepreneurial commitment of the employees in our Group companies.

Our common commitment makes great achievements possible, especially in turbulent times, and will continue to strengthen the Group in the future.