Increase in premiums and profit
The Group results for 2011 show that Vienna Insurance Group was correct when it decided to expand into Central and Eastern Europe. The companies outside Austria earned more than half of the premium volume for property and casualty insurance and, for the first time, for life insurance as well. It is also clear that the multi-brand policy and geographic diversification bring benefits. As a result, strong growth in markets such as the Czech Republic and Poland more than offset the loss in life insurance in Austria. Vienna Insurance Group continued to grow in the difficult economic environment last year and achieved the high targets it set for profit before taxes and the combined ratio.
SAP Smile Solutions
Vienna Insurance Group has set itself the goal of developing a software standard for managing insurance policies that can be used across Europe. Subsidiary BIAC GmbH is assisting Vienna Insurance Group by realising the poject Smile using software from SAP AG.
The project is aimed at creating an efficient, user-friendly and technologically secure IT architecture with the insurance departments for the approximately 20 million insurance policies managed by Vienna Insurance Group Europe-wide. The goal is to achieve as much flexibility as possible in order to allow quick responses to changes in customer and distributor requirements, market changes and future technical developments. More than 30 successful production runs have been performed since 2005. Intensive work continued on this project in 2011, and key parts of the overall solution were put into operation in the major companies of the Group.
Timely announcement of successors
Günter Geyer leaves his position as Chairman of the Vienna Insurance Group Managing Board, effective 31 May 2012, after the General Meeting, where the 2011 annual financial statements are approved. Ensuring a high level of transparency for personnel changes is very important to VIG. In preparation for changes in top management, the Supervisory Board decided on the following changes in the Vienna Insurance Group Managing Board as early as the spring of 2011.
Since July 2011, Franz Kosyna has been a member of the Vienna Insurance Group Managing Board and Judit Havasi has been a deputy member of the Managing Board. Peter Hagen will be appointed General Manager and Chairman of the Managing Board of the Group on 1 June 2012, and Franz Kosyna will be granted the title of Deputy General Manager. Günter Geyer will mainly deal with strategic issues of importance to the main shareholder in the future and head the supervisory boards of Group companies. Günter Geyer personally presented the new Managing Board team during a festive occasion in the Wiener Hofburg. These strategic changes will ensure continuation of the performance achieved by the Vienna Insurance Group in the future.
The Vienna Insurance Group Managing Board will have the following members starting as of 1 June 2012:
-
General Manager Peter Hagen (CEO)
-
Deputy General Manager Franz Kosyna
-
Martin Simhandl (CFO)
-
Franz Fuchs
-
Peter Höfinger
