Transparent lobbying activities

In the interests of our stakeholders, we contribute our knowledge and expertise to the political decision-making process. In doing so, we place our main emphasis on fairness and transparency.

Unlike the laws of nature, making regulations is a job for people, and is subject to a variety of values and perspectives. In order to formulate new legislative texts, the government constantly draws on the knowledge, experience and assessments of those affected to allow it to reach balanced and appropriate decisions. This may take the form of hearings and consultations, as well as individual discussions.

In the interests of our clients, employees and shareholders, we actively participate in the political decision-making process. We focus on topic areas that affect our Group and our stakeholders, and in which we possess a high level of expertise. With many Munich Re concerns, the corporate interest matches the general societal interest, for example in the areas of climate protection and data security, or with investments in infrastructure. In 2021, our main focus was on the following topics:

Digitalisation

Digitalisation will have an enormous impact on almost every aspect of our business. We support the digital agenda of the German government and the European Commission. Our focus is on creating a uniform framework and legal certainty in Europe. These should be flexible and agile enough to allow the development of innovative products and services and to exploit the benefits of digitalisation. For more information, please see the “Digitalisation and cyber” section of our Sustainability Report.

Global Insurance Capital Standard (ICS)

The development and, in particular, the widespread implementation of a global capital standard for insurance undertakings poses a major challenge for both insurance companies and supervisory authorities alike. We take part in consultations on the development of the ICS and are involved in quantitative tests.

Sustainable finance

We acknowledge the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and are committed to them. One way we express this is through our membership of the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (AOA) and the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), which we co-founded in 2021. Through our public commitment, we aim to promote the transition to a low-carbon and sustainable economy. We participate in debates concerning the EU Action Plan for Sustainable Finance, and take part in consultations on legislative procedures and in supervisory authority surveys. We also welcome the establishment of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) at the last World Climate Conference (COP 26). In our view, it is essential to develop an internationally recognised basis for the disclosure of sustainability data, thus ensuring that such data is comparable and available in high quality.

Regulation of systemic risks

Traditional insurance and reinsurance activities are not systemically important. Munich Re was not classed as a global systemically important insurer (G-SII). We nevertheless followed the discussions on further developing the method towards an activity-based approach and responded to relevant consultations. We continue to participate in data collection by regulatory authorities to assess systemic risks.

Our Public Affairs department is responsible for the Munich Re Group’s lobbying of governments, national and supranational authorities, associations and other organisations. We are also active in industry organisations, including the German Insurance Association (GDV), the Geneva Association, the European Insurance Chief Financial Officers’ (CFO) Forum, the Chief Risk Officers’ (CRO) Forum, the Reinsurance Advisory Board (RAB) of Insurance Europe, as well as the Pan-European Insurance Forum (PEIF).

Munich Re attaches great importance to ensuring its lobbying activities are transparent. We therefore provide details to the Transparency Register of the European Parliament and the European Commission, the Lobby Register of the German Bundestag and the Bavarian Lobby Register on focal points, memberships and the effort and expense involved in our lobbying activities.