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Journal - Allianz
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ALLIANZ GROUP<br />
<strong>Journal</strong><br />
International Edition 2 | 2013<br />
8<br />
Dialog<br />
27<br />
in times of terror<br />
Bridging the gap of hatred<br />
“An extraordinarily<br />
ugly species”<br />
Aging studies on<br />
a wrinkled object<br />
On the edge<br />
Portugal in crisis
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Contents<br />
IMPRINT<br />
all pictures: Shutterstock<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong><br />
2/2013 (June)<br />
Employee magazine for<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group companies<br />
Published by <strong>Allianz</strong> SE<br />
Overall responsibility<br />
Emilio Galli-Zugaro<br />
Editor-in-chief<br />
Frank Stern<br />
Layout volk:art51<br />
Production repromüller<br />
Editorial address<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> SE,<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> <strong>Journal</strong><br />
Königinstrasse 28<br />
D-80802 Munich<br />
Tel +49 89 3800 3804<br />
journal@allianz.com<br />
The paper used in the<br />
publication of <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Journal</strong> is manufactured<br />
from wood from<br />
sustainable forests.<br />
48<br />
Sometimes an amateur video or a caricature of Mohammed is enough to cause<br />
outrage on the other side of the world<br />
27<br />
Methuselah in a wrinkled onesie: The naked mole rat can live to the age<br />
of 30. Researchers are on the t(r)ail of the longevity conundrum<br />
22<br />
Men and women are incompatible – at least as far as their ideas<br />
about advancement and career are concerned<br />
AROUND THE WORLD<br />
4 News from the <strong>Allianz</strong> Group<br />
OPINIONS<br />
8 Dialog in times of terror<br />
Shamil Idriss on prejudices and conciliation<br />
12 Letters to the editor<br />
GLOBAL<br />
14 No place on earth<br />
Natural events and the cost of risk<br />
17 Signal from Spain<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> International in Barcelona<br />
EUROPE<br />
19 Country of naggers?<br />
The will of the people vs. large-scale projects<br />
22 The End of Men and the Cowardice<br />
of Women<br />
Study on the dearth of women at executive level<br />
24 Caution: debt trap!<br />
My Finance Coach and the temptations of the<br />
consumer world<br />
25 “Everything is above board”<br />
Debt prevention in the classroom<br />
EUROPE<br />
27 “An extraordinarily ugly species”<br />
The naked mole rat and research into aging<br />
30 On the edge<br />
Portugal in crisis<br />
34 Europe as a building site<br />
A financial injection for infrastructure projects<br />
36 Tryst with Hamilton<br />
Formula 1 up close<br />
THE AMERICAS<br />
38 “Like a war zone”<br />
Hurricane Sandy – solidarity in the wake<br />
of a disaster<br />
AUSTRALIA<br />
40 Elephants in the outback<br />
Risk management the Aussie way<br />
ASIA<br />
43 “Tough competition”<br />
Uwe Michel on the new strategy in China<br />
SOCIETY<br />
46 Boulevard of freedom<br />
Musical awakening in Casablanca<br />
48 Enemy on the screen<br />
Training in tolerance in the chatroom<br />
51 Dilbert<br />
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AROUND<br />
THE WORLD<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Shutterstock<br />
Ambassador at the keyboard<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Credit insurance<br />
for HSBC clients<br />
Euler Hermes is now the exclusive provider of credit<br />
insurance for commercial banking clients at HSBC.<br />
An agreement to this effect was concluded in May.<br />
The global sales agreement provides protection<br />
against non-payment of receivables debt for HSBC<br />
customers trading on “open account”. HSBC and<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> subsidiary Euler Hermes have been strategic<br />
partners in Brazil, Mexico, the USA, Hong Kong, the<br />
UK and the United Arab Emirates since 2008.<br />
WWW.HSBC.COM<br />
Arena in green<br />
On March 17, the <strong>Allianz</strong> Arena in Munich was illuminated<br />
in an unusual color in honor of the patron<br />
saint of Ireland. Instead of red for FC Bayern, blue<br />
for TSV 1860 München or neutral white, the football<br />
temple was lit up in emerald green to celebrate<br />
St. Patrick’s Day, the Irish National Holiday. Famous<br />
buildings in other parts of the world were also lit<br />
up in green, from the Empire State Building in New<br />
York to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Christ the<br />
Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.<br />
Market leader in Turkey<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> has acquired the nonlife, life and pensions business from Turkey’s<br />
fourth biggest private bank, Yapi Kredi, making it the top-ranking insurer on<br />
the Turkish insurance market. <strong>Allianz</strong> has also secured a 15-year exclusive<br />
distribution agreement. The move was announced by the two partners in<br />
March. Thanks to the acquisition of the P&C insurer Yapi Kredi Sigorta and<br />
the life and pensions subsidiary Yapi Kredi Emeklilik, <strong>Allianz</strong> Turkey is now<br />
the top-ranking nonlife insurer, second-ranking pension provider and thirdranking<br />
life insurer in the country.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong>’s position in the Turkish market has also been strengthened by a tenyear<br />
exclusive distribution agreement with HSBC bank. Both companies are<br />
already cooperating in a number of Asian markets selling life, health and<br />
credit insurance. From the second half of 2013, HSBC will sell <strong>Allianz</strong> life insurance<br />
and pension products to HSBC customers. Other European countries<br />
are set to follow suit.<br />
WWW.HSBC.COM | WWW.ALLIANZ.COM.TR<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Stadium<br />
in São Paulo<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> has formalized a 20-year naming rights deal for<br />
the new Palmeiras soccer club’s stadium in São Paulo.<br />
The Nova Arena will be used as a sports stadium and<br />
also as a venue for major events and mega shows. Apart<br />
from the <strong>Allianz</strong> Arena in Munich, <strong>Allianz</strong> is already the<br />
naming sponsor for stadiums in Australia, the UK and<br />
France. Construction costs for the Palmeiras stadium<br />
are estimated at EUR 125 million.<br />
In January, the acclaimed Chinese pianist<br />
Lang Lang and <strong>Allianz</strong> launched a global<br />
partnership, which will run initially for<br />
two years and give <strong>Allianz</strong> access to a<br />
new customer segment. Lang Lang will<br />
act as <strong>Allianz</strong>’s global brand ambassador.<br />
At the same time, <strong>Allianz</strong> and the Lang<br />
Lang International Music Foundation<br />
announced that the Foundation plans<br />
to run a dedicated youth program to be<br />
sponsored by <strong>Allianz</strong>. Lang Lang is a superstar<br />
on the international music scene<br />
and performs on a regular basis with the<br />
best symphony orchestras in the world,<br />
giving more than 120 concerts a year.<br />
WWW.LANGLANG.COM<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> buys<br />
gas network<br />
After buying a stake in the Norwegian gas transport network Gassled early last<br />
year, <strong>Allianz</strong> together with the Canadian firm Borealis Infrastructure also acquired<br />
Czech gas pipeline operator Net4Gas in March. Net4Gas, a subsidiary of the German<br />
energy provider RWE, operates a 3,600 km grid of high-pressure pipelines, supplying<br />
the Czech domestic market, as well as transporting Russian natural gas to<br />
Central and Western Europe. The purchase price was EUR 1.6 billion. <strong>Allianz</strong> and<br />
Borealis will each hold a 50 percent stake in Net4Gas.<br />
Shutterstock<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Life in<br />
the top 100<br />
For the second time in a row <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Life has made it on to the Fortune<br />
magazine’s annual list of the 100<br />
best companies to work for in the<br />
USA. The American life insurance<br />
subsidiary, with its head office in<br />
Minneapolis ranked 59th. The winner<br />
was Google, which also won last<br />
year. 259 companies took part in<br />
the survey, and more than 277,000<br />
employees rated their managers,<br />
as well as job satisfaction and qualification<br />
measures offered by their<br />
company.<br />
WWW.ALLIANZLIFE.COM<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Bank<br />
closes up shop<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Bank in Germany is to cease<br />
operations on June 30. According to<br />
Andree Moschner, board member<br />
of <strong>Allianz</strong> Beratungs- und Vertriebs-<br />
AG (<strong>Allianz</strong> sales organization), the<br />
decision follows accruing losses<br />
over the years with no turnaround<br />
in sight. The move means the loss of<br />
450 jobs nationwide and the closure<br />
of 45 bank offices within <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
agencies. <strong>Allianz</strong> Bank was set up in<br />
2009 as a branch of Oldenburgische<br />
Landesbank, which is part of the<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group.<br />
WWW.OLB.DE<br />
WWW.PALMEIRAS.COM.BR/HOME<br />
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AROUND<br />
THE WORLD<br />
ACIS<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong><br />
PERSONALIA<br />
Noboru Tsuda has been appointed new<br />
CEO of <strong>Allianz</strong> Life Insurance Japan, effective<br />
March 1, 2013. He replaced Olaf Kliesow<br />
who took over as Head of Global Life &<br />
Health Portfolio Management at <strong>Allianz</strong> SE<br />
in Munich.<br />
After more than 15 years as the CEO for<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> in Poland, Pawel Dangel has decided<br />
to retire in mid 2013. His successor is Witold<br />
Jaworski who brings to his new position<br />
long-standing experience in the Polish insurance<br />
industry.<br />
David Fried, former Regional CEO of <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Asia Pacific, has left <strong>Allianz</strong> Singa pore Branch<br />
to pursue other career opportunities outside<br />
the <strong>Allianz</strong> Group, effective January 1,<br />
2013. His functions have been taken over by<br />
Manuel Bauer for the time being.<br />
In May, Chris James, CEO of <strong>Allianz</strong> Taiwan<br />
Life, retired after 13 years with <strong>Allianz</strong>. He<br />
was succeeded by Danny Lam.<br />
Flashmob for the 10th<br />
Ten years ago, <strong>Allianz</strong> UK established its<br />
IT subsidiary ACIS in Trivandrum, India.<br />
What started out as a small unit with<br />
50 employees has grown into a fullfledged<br />
company with four offices and<br />
a staff of 1,600. A surprise awaited the<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> UK CEO Andrew Torrance when<br />
he arrived to join in the 10th anniversary<br />
WWW.ACIS.CO.IN<br />
celebrations there: dozens of ACIS staff<br />
greeted him with a flashmob dance to<br />
the Korean pop song Gangnam Style.<br />
ACIS intends to use this anniversary year<br />
to increase its support for social projects<br />
in the city and to present the company<br />
to schools and universities.<br />
Cooperation with Paralympic Committee<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> has extended its sponsorship of disability sport around<br />
the world over the next four years. In April, Sir Philip Craven<br />
(right in photo), President of the International Paralympic<br />
Committee (IPC), and <strong>Allianz</strong> board member Werner Zedelius<br />
signed an agreement to this end in Munich. <strong>Allianz</strong> has been<br />
working with the IPC since 2006 to promote public awareness<br />
of the sport. The four-year agreement comprises a full<br />
Olympic cycle and includes support of numerous Paralympic<br />
committees during the preparations for the Winter Games<br />
in Sochi in 2014 and the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro in<br />
2016. Sports associations in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Croatia,<br />
Mexico, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, the Czech Republic<br />
and Hungary will also be involved.<br />
WWW.SPONSORING.ALLIANZ.COM<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> <strong>Journal</strong><br />
on the internet<br />
Since March, <strong>Allianz</strong> <strong>Journal</strong> has also been<br />
available to readers on the internet. On the<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group’s knowledge portal, the <strong>Journal</strong><br />
has its own section from which readers can<br />
access the magazine contents. Pdf files of the<br />
printed version, as well as formats for smartphones<br />
and tablets, are also available here.<br />
HTTP://KNOWLEDGE.ALLIANZ.COM/<br />
JOURNAL<br />
Junior Football<br />
Camp in Munich<br />
In August, <strong>Allianz</strong> will start its fifth Junior Football Camp in Munich.<br />
75 teenagers from 25 different countries will have the opportunity to<br />
observe first hand their football heroes from FC Bayern Munich at the<br />
Bayern training ground. But the program offers even more for the<br />
kids: training with FC Bayern youth coaches, a visit to a home game,<br />
a special tour of the <strong>Allianz</strong> Arena and a look behind the scenes of the<br />
Champions League winner. And, as a particular highlight, a personal<br />
meeting with the stars of Germany’s most successful football club.<br />
WWW.FOOTBALL-FOR-LIFE.COM<br />
AWARDS<br />
Insurance from<br />
a cell phone<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Zagreb is the first company in Croatia<br />
to launch a smartphone app for travel health<br />
insurance. The free m-<strong>Allianz</strong> app enables users<br />
to take out insurance in just a few simple steps.<br />
All a customer has to do is enter his personal<br />
details, the type of insurance needed and the<br />
duration. The premium is then paid by credit<br />
card. Even users who decide to go away on the<br />
spur of the moment can easily get insurance<br />
cover. The policy is issued by e-mail. A 24-hour<br />
helpline can provide assistance, for instance,<br />
if a client is experiencing language problems<br />
abroad. The team can also inform the client’s<br />
family in case of an emergency and pass on<br />
claims for costs incurred directly to <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Assistance, so there’s no need to file a claim<br />
after returning home.<br />
WWW.ALLIANZ.HR<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> came out the most trusted insurer in Europe<br />
in the Reader’s Digest European Trusted Brands 2013<br />
survey. Approximately 20,000 readers from 12 European<br />
countries took part in the survey. It was the 12th time<br />
in a row that <strong>Allianz</strong> was named most trusted insurance<br />
brand in Europe.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong>-Tiriac has been awarded “Insurance Company<br />
of the Year 2012” by the Romanian insurance magazine<br />
PRIMM. It was the 11th time that the <strong>Allianz</strong> subsidiary<br />
received the award.<br />
Euler Hermes was named trade credit insurance firm<br />
of the year by the business magazine Trade and Export<br />
Middle East at the first Trade & Export Middle East<br />
Excellence Awards in Dubai.<br />
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Opinions<br />
dpa / picture-alliance<br />
Dialog in times<br />
of terror<br />
In a time when the rift between<br />
the Muslim and the Western<br />
worlds seem to be widening, a<br />
small organization is set to bridge<br />
the gap via the internet. We talked<br />
to the CEO of Soliya, Shamil Idriss,<br />
about dialog in times of terror.<br />
Hatred of the West: the suspected Boston bombers<br />
INTERVIEW: FRANK STERN<br />
Mr. Idriss, when you look at the world<br />
today, do you really think the profound<br />
divisions and conflicts can be solved<br />
by virtual Round Tables of students on<br />
internet platforms like the one Soliya<br />
has established?<br />
15 or 20 years ago, if a pastor in Florida with<br />
fewer than 50 people in his congregation<br />
threatened to burn the Quran nobody would<br />
have cared, nobody even would have known<br />
who this guy was. But now these things go<br />
viral so quickly. The only conclusion I draw<br />
from this is that we have to build up the willingness,<br />
the interest and the skills of a much<br />
larger group of people to foster cooperation<br />
across societies. And the only way I think you<br />
can do that is through virtual means because<br />
exchange programs are too expensive and<br />
too difficult. Right now fewer than two percent<br />
of young people participate in any kind<br />
of study abroad program or exchange experience.<br />
We’ve got to use the virtual means<br />
to connect a much larger group of people.<br />
And not just connect them. They have to<br />
have a really profound cross-cultural experience,<br />
not just a facebook link. If we could<br />
reach a critical mass of let’s say 15 percent<br />
of the population across the board with our<br />
programs, then I think we could build a real<br />
constituency to make a difference.<br />
How far should cross-cultural dialog go?<br />
Where is the line between tolerance and<br />
giving up your own values?<br />
It can be legitimate for government representatives<br />
to refuse to engage with certain<br />
parties because they don’t want to legitimize<br />
them. I’m much less understanding of the<br />
refusal for people to speak to people. And I<br />
think often the best way for people to learn<br />
about their own positions is through engaging<br />
others who disagree with them. I think<br />
whatever your values are you will benefit<br />
from engaging with people and having<br />
those values challenged. You may come out<br />
questioning some of those values or you feel<br />
all the more confident about your position.<br />
I think a much bigger danger is to live in a<br />
metaphorical bubble.<br />
But how can you find common ground<br />
with a perception of society that was<br />
overcome in Europe with the era of<br />
Enlightenment?<br />
I don’t accept the notion that you can’t start<br />
dialog between people who come from<br />
different intellectual traditions and societal<br />
histories, that there are two succinctly<br />
defined and static intellectual traditions that<br />
are mutually exclusive. You have much more<br />
fluid realities both in the West and in Muslim<br />
societies today. Especially now where many<br />
Muslim societies are really questioning a lot<br />
of fundamental assumptions.<br />
According to a professor from Egypt<br />
who took part in your program some<br />
of the Muslim students were shocked<br />
when first confronted with Jews.<br />
There is a combination of policy differences<br />
and fears, stereotypes and ignorance among<br />
people. The best way to deal with those<br />
stereotypes is through connecting people<br />
to real people and having that experience<br />
where your assumptions are turned on<br />
their head. There were students who quite<br />
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OPINIONS<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Stern<br />
literally thought that Jews look different – it’s<br />
shocking but I mean this is what students<br />
think who have never met a Jew, who have<br />
grown up in a world where the view about<br />
Jews is purely negative. For them it’s a very<br />
profound experience to have a face-to-face<br />
encounter. So when you ask, can it solve the<br />
problem – I actually think on the people-topeople<br />
ignorance side of the equation, the<br />
internet is indispensable.<br />
Some could say Soliya is infiltrating the<br />
Western phalanx, others might suspect<br />
you are a collaborator.<br />
We’ve had it on all sides. People are often<br />
suspicious at the outset.<br />
Which is understandable. In the eyes<br />
of Muslim students it must be ominous<br />
that the US government is funding the<br />
program.<br />
First, we actually haven’t had US government<br />
funding for our Connect program. We<br />
had US government funding for the fellowship<br />
afterwards. It’s an important question<br />
because we do get asked who funds the<br />
program. So we are always very transparent<br />
with that. We do take some pride that<br />
we have Swiss and Norwegian government<br />
funding. But we also have funding from the<br />
Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, from the Ford<br />
Foundation, from the <strong>Allianz</strong> Foundation<br />
for North America and other sources. That<br />
diversity of funding is actually really important<br />
for this reason.<br />
Many of the colleges you are cooperating<br />
with are located in Egypt where the<br />
Muslim Brotherhood is the ruling party<br />
now. What will Soliya’s future in Egypt<br />
look like?<br />
I don’t know. Before the Brotherhood, we<br />
were dealing with an autocratic regime in<br />
Egypt and I was at least as worried then. I tell<br />
you what the more exciting indicators are.<br />
One is students who go through our program,<br />
who are Brotherhood advocates and<br />
participants. That’s part of society. You can’t<br />
get away from the importance of religion in<br />
the society there. But they love the program<br />
too. Al-Azhar is the oldest school of Sunni<br />
Muslim thought in the Muslim world. We<br />
run the program at Al-Azhar in two classes<br />
there. And they are interested in a vast<br />
expansion. That’s a very big deal for us. So<br />
we’re seeing people coming from religious<br />
perspectives actually being really interested<br />
in these connections.<br />
At the moment it looks as if Egypt is<br />
follwing a path towards a new autocratic<br />
development.<br />
Well, it depends from which perspective you<br />
look at it. Last year’s elections were seen as<br />
legitimate elections.<br />
The Nazis in Germany came to power<br />
via elections too.<br />
This danger is present in any transitional<br />
society. I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion<br />
though. I don’t know whether President<br />
Mursi is Idi Amin or if he is Abraham Lincoln.<br />
I challenge anyone to definitively say which<br />
he is. It’s not that I would defend all that<br />
Mursi does but what I am suspicious of is<br />
that people on either side of the ideological<br />
equation are so convinced. I think the situation<br />
is much more complicated. Yes, there is<br />
a danger that it could go into that antidemocratic<br />
direction. But I also don’t think that is<br />
a foregone conclusion. When looking at any<br />
transitional society one of the challenges is<br />
impatience. This societal experiment is going<br />
to take at least a generation to work through<br />
and maybe more. So we are talking 30 years.<br />
Minimum.<br />
You cooperate with more than 100<br />
universities in 27 countries all over the<br />
world. If you want to cross ideological<br />
divides, why is there not even one from<br />
Israel?<br />
We do have Israelis participating in the fellowship<br />
that we run. We have fellows from<br />
Israel being trained as facilitators. And we’ve<br />
had Israeli participants in our Connect Program.<br />
As for the university partnerships,<br />
unfortunately, it’s so challenging right now<br />
in the Middle East. Lebanon and Israel are<br />
still officially at war. It could become quite<br />
difficult and dangerous for students, whose<br />
universities have official contacts to an Israeli<br />
institution. For a lot of universities from Arab<br />
countries participating in our program it’s a<br />
very challenging situation.<br />
A situation which virtual discussions<br />
won’t change.<br />
Our program is a long-term endeavour in<br />
the sense that we have to maximize the<br />
numbers of participants over time. I think<br />
if we were already doing this with a million<br />
students a year they’d already be changing<br />
the world. It’s urgent that we scale-up<br />
these kinds of connections between people.<br />
Because the other side of things can still go<br />
wrong with hate-mongers influencing the<br />
agenda, a ridiculous video stirring up emotions<br />
or something goes viral and sets our<br />
societies on a collision course. We need to<br />
stop that.<br />
We have to cooperate across a lot more<br />
divides than we ever did before to solve our<br />
problems as a human race. It’s an urgent<br />
requirement now that we maximize the<br />
number and the diversity of people who<br />
have the willingness and the skills to foster<br />
that cooperation across divides. Governments<br />
are decreasingly influential in the<br />
world today. The broader issue we have is<br />
not the Clash of Civilizations but the deeprunning<br />
differences in the world. If you look<br />
at my own country, the divide between<br />
secular and religious, between far left and<br />
far right is very polarizing and it’s getting<br />
so extreme that we are more and more<br />
dysfunctional in our ability to do what is<br />
necessary.<br />
Maybe you should set up a dialog program<br />
just for the US.<br />
There are many European societies which<br />
are also very much divided. So forget the<br />
clash between Islam and the West. If we<br />
aren’t even able to foster connections across<br />
divides in our own societies we won’t be able<br />
to solve fundamental problems of humankind<br />
as a whole. We need to be able to cooperate<br />
across our differences.<br />
As long as the Palestinians don’t have<br />
their own state the rift won’t go away.<br />
This is the tinderbox. I agree with you, I don’t<br />
think that if you solve that conflict everything<br />
will go away. But I’m sure that if you<br />
don’t solve that conflict you will always be<br />
very limited in what you can do. In my view,<br />
the key to solving that conflict is increasingly<br />
building up constituencies that are able to<br />
talk to each other and have an impact on the<br />
solution. There are countless other conflicts<br />
in history that seemed inevitable or intractable.<br />
But in the end, they were eventually<br />
solved.<br />
To read the long version of this interview please go to:<br />
HTTP://KNOWLEDGE.ALLIANZ.COM/JOURNAL<br />
PROFILE<br />
Shamil Idriss has been CEO of Soliya since<br />
2009. He is an American of Syrian and Turkish<br />
ancestry and an expert in the field of conflict<br />
mediation. In 2005, he was appointed by<br />
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as Deputy<br />
Director of the UN Alliance of Civilizations,<br />
which was set up to counter extremism and<br />
polarization in the world. He has worked for<br />
the World Economic Forum and as an adviser<br />
to Search for Common Ground (SFCG), an<br />
organization for conflict resolution with<br />
offices in 17 countries. The 40-year-old New<br />
Yorker is a member of the Muslim Leaders<br />
of Tomorrow network and the Young Global<br />
Leaders network of the World Economic<br />
Forum. Idriss lives with his wife and two<br />
daughters near New York.<br />
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OPINIONS<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Letters<br />
to the editor<br />
Simplistic answer<br />
Heidrun Naujoks of <strong>Allianz</strong> Leben<br />
in Munich comments on the article<br />
“Fruitful investments” in <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Journal</strong> 1/2013:<br />
In the article “Fruitful Investments” by<br />
Michael Grimm the following question was<br />
posed: “So why (despite growing yields)<br />
do hundreds of millions still go hungry?”<br />
Bryan Agbabian of <strong>Allianz</strong> Global Investors<br />
answered: “We’re still not producing<br />
enough.” This statement is simply accepted<br />
as though it’s an undisputed truth.<br />
But the answer is far too simplistic and may<br />
in fact be wrong. For instance, according to<br />
the United Nations, about 1.3 billion tons of<br />
food is thrown away every year around the<br />
world. Theoretically, the quantity of food<br />
discarded in industrial nations alone would<br />
be enough to feed every person on the<br />
planet suffering from hunger. Many experts<br />
believe that enough food is grown and produced,<br />
but it isn’t fairly distributed around<br />
the world.<br />
There are many other points of view on this<br />
subject, and it would have been good if they<br />
could at least have been mentioned briefly<br />
in the article, because the issue is certainly<br />
too complex for simple answers. It is also<br />
questionable, to say the very least, whether<br />
global agribusiness corporations and their<br />
investors are actually helping farming in the<br />
world’s poor and poorest regions.<br />
On the subject of meat consumption, I share<br />
the view of economist Gernot Klepper and<br />
many other experts who believe that the<br />
rising global demand for meat is one of the<br />
causes of food shortages due to increasing<br />
use of arable land to grow animal feed. I’d<br />
be interested to know whether <strong>Allianz</strong> still<br />
invests in companies in the meat industry.<br />
One must unfortunately assume this to<br />
be the case if investments by the Global<br />
Agricultural Trends Fund do in fact cover<br />
“the entire chain of agricultural production,<br />
processing and distribution.”<br />
Readers’ Forum<br />
If you liked or even disliked any items in the<br />
<strong>Journal</strong>, we would like to hear from you.<br />
Your feedback will help us to improve our<br />
content, so all comments and suggestions for<br />
improvement are welcome. Please send to:<br />
journal@allianz.com<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> <strong>Journal</strong><br />
Königinstr. 28, D-80802 Munich<br />
Group Intranet (GIN) → <strong>Allianz</strong> key information<br />
→ <strong>Journal</strong><br />
http://knowledge.allianz.com/journal<br />
Deadline for submissions for the <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Journal</strong> 3/2013 is August 30, 2013.<br />
Disastrous<br />
consequences<br />
Sepp Sperr from <strong>Allianz</strong> Deutschland in<br />
Munich also takes the “Fruitful Investments”<br />
article to task:<br />
You write: “We’re still not producing<br />
enough”. I find that hard to accept. Have<br />
you ever asked yourself why so much food<br />
is thrown away? To quote from the film We<br />
Feed the World: “Every day in Vienna the<br />
amount of unsold bread sent back to be<br />
disposed of is enough to supply Austria’s<br />
second-largest city, Graz. Around 350,000<br />
hectares of agricultural land, above all in<br />
Latin America, are dedicated to the cultivation<br />
of soybeans to feed Austria’s livestock,<br />
while one quarter of the local population<br />
starves. Every European eats ten kilograms<br />
a year of artificially irrigated greenhouse<br />
vegetables from southern Spain, with water<br />
shortages being the result.” You also write,<br />
Shutterstock<br />
“Our fund invests in companies that help<br />
boost productivity.” However, you don’t write<br />
– presumably intentionally – in which regions<br />
food production is increased by those<br />
companies.<br />
Nor do I share your view that biofuel production<br />
has little impact on prices. Quite apart<br />
from the fact that biofuel is extremely bad<br />
for the environment (as a result of clearing<br />
rainforests, for example), the conversion<br />
of basic foodstuffs into fuel increases the<br />
demand for these commodities, thus increasing<br />
prices, which poor countries can<br />
then no longer afford. Rich farmers who<br />
can produce surpluses prefer to sell their<br />
food to rich countries and make a fat profit<br />
in the process, so there’s even less to eat in<br />
poor countries. Poor farmers, by contrast,<br />
are barely able to produce enough to feed<br />
themselves and have to buy the expensive<br />
food that they can’t afford.<br />
I do agree that the situation can be remedied<br />
only by taking an ecological approach<br />
to farming, not by increasing the use of fertilizers.<br />
Fertilizer, after all, is generally used<br />
only where there’s already enough to eat<br />
or where farmers export their produce (for<br />
instance, soybeans from Brazil). And that<br />
has disastrous consequences.<br />
More than<br />
financial support<br />
Linda Murphy of <strong>Allianz</strong> Global Corporate<br />
& Specialty in Los Angeles on the<br />
cooperation of <strong>Allianz</strong> and MyHandicap:<br />
Recently, a family member of mine lost their<br />
leg and we have been going through months<br />
of surgery, as well as months of adapting to<br />
a new life without a leg and with wheelchairs<br />
and prosthetics. It is wonderful to see again<br />
how <strong>Allianz</strong> goes beyond just providing<br />
financial protection and support for individuals<br />
but also partners up with social initiatives<br />
that are looking to improve quality of life.<br />
We had not heard of MyHandicap and really<br />
enjoy learning about all of its benefits. The<br />
insurance products being developed will be<br />
great for handicapped people. It is very rewarding<br />
knowing that I work for a company<br />
that partners social initiatives in this way.<br />
Frustration in sales<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> general agent Horst Frei from<br />
Mosbach in Baden-Württemberg on the<br />
interview with Karsten Crede of <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Global Automotive entitled “The future<br />
is inconceivable without cars” in <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Journal</strong> 1/2013:<br />
I can understand that <strong>Allianz</strong> would like<br />
to expand its Global Automotive business<br />
but why this article has appeared in <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Journal</strong> is a complete mystery to me. My colleagues<br />
and I make a living selling insurance.<br />
Now we’ve got competition from our own<br />
company again. We’ve just sustained two<br />
years of substantial premium adjustments.<br />
Many clients have left us because they were<br />
annoyed about their premiums.<br />
At the same time, the designated CEO of the<br />
newly founded VW Insurance (under the<br />
aegis of <strong>Allianz</strong>!) was quoted in the press as<br />
saying: “There’s still room to lower prices<br />
further”. And this comes from an insurer that<br />
is already significantly cheaper and can offer<br />
better services than the <strong>Allianz</strong> agent around<br />
the corner.<br />
Surely an article of this nature will encourage<br />
exclusivity sales enormously. I don’t expect<br />
every article in the <strong>Allianz</strong> <strong>Journal</strong> to make<br />
me dance for joy. However, a little more sensitivity<br />
would be welcome to prevent even<br />
more frustration in sales.<br />
“Many roads lead<br />
to Rome”<br />
Axel Steinhoff of <strong>Allianz</strong> Beratungsund<br />
Vertriebs-AG in Munich comments<br />
on the interview with Dieter Wemmer<br />
and Manuel Bauer on the subject of<br />
corporate culture:<br />
In his interview with Manuel Bauer and<br />
Dieter Wemmer, Frank Stern asked how<br />
different value systems and cultures affect<br />
management behavior and management<br />
culture, but in my opinion the answer he<br />
received was just one side of the coin. To<br />
me the answer was more a comment on<br />
the development status of another value<br />
system from a German point of view. It<br />
focused on the impact of German (management)<br />
behavior in the countries mentioned,<br />
for instance in the sense of a different way of<br />
communicating or exchanging information.<br />
However, as I understand it, the question<br />
was really about the impact of other value<br />
systems and cultures on management behavior<br />
in general, for example, on the behavior<br />
of managers here in our country. From<br />
my own experience I would say that we<br />
should not underestimate the importance<br />
of accepting and respecting other cultures,<br />
values and communication systems, as well<br />
as their application in the context of our own<br />
system or guidelines.<br />
In my view, the effect of such interaction<br />
with foreign cultures lies in a more enriching<br />
and healthy reflection of our management<br />
behavior, helping us to become tolerant and<br />
open-minded here to the many roads that<br />
lead to Rome.<br />
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Global<br />
dpa / picture-alliance<br />
No place<br />
on earth<br />
It’s one of the great mysteries of our time<br />
that nature repeatedly catches the insurance<br />
industry on the back foot. The earthquake<br />
in New Zealand, the tsunami in Japan, the<br />
hundred-year flood in Thailand – each time<br />
experts are amazed that no one saw it coming.<br />
Since 2011, the worst year for disasters of all<br />
time, one <strong>Allianz</strong> unit has been trying to sharpen<br />
the awareness for risk.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
First the bad news: there’s no safe place on earth. Nowhere.<br />
The meteorite that exploded over Chelyabinsk in<br />
Russia on February 15 has made that very clear. “Had it<br />
fallen a little later, it could have hit Germany, for instance,”<br />
says Markus Aichinger. “And it would have shattered a lot<br />
more windows then than it did in the Urals.”<br />
Aichinger is one of a group of experts helping <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
underwriters recognize the damage potential of natural<br />
events, particularly in the corporate insurance segment<br />
(MidCorp), and to set appropriate premiums. The NatCat<br />
team, which belongs to Global P&C (Property & Casualty)<br />
isn’t too worried about meteorites. “The probability that<br />
a rock from space will fall on your head is miniscule,” says<br />
Aichinger. “What eats into business profits is damage<br />
caused by hail, water and storms. And the trend is clearly<br />
going upwards.”<br />
On 11th March, 2011, a devastating tsunami was triggered by an earthquake<br />
off the east coast of Japan’s main island Honshu. More than 20,000<br />
people perished in the floods<br />
Aichinger, a meteorologist by training, sees premiums<br />
always lagging one step behind claims. “P&C business<br />
contributes 50 percent to <strong>Allianz</strong>’s operating profit.<br />
Just a small improvement would translate into a huge<br />
advantage,” he says. The P&C Academy, part of Global<br />
P&C, which was founded in 2011, provides underwriters<br />
of Group companies with the technical expertise they<br />
need. Aichinger and his colleagues are also involved here<br />
(see box).<br />
Besides risk assessment and premium calculations, the<br />
P&C Academy trainings and seminars also deal with<br />
fundamental questions, such as how the danger of risk<br />
Global P&C<br />
Global P&C was set up in 2011 to help <strong>Allianz</strong> companies<br />
ensure the profitability of their P&C business. The technical<br />
expertise for risk assessment, premium setting and portfolio<br />
management is conveyed in trainings and seminars<br />
at the P&C Academy. In addition, Global P&C’s experts<br />
examine the property & casualty sector of several <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
companies (MidCorp business reviews) every year and<br />
make recommendations for improving profitability. Best<br />
practice models are also presented to other Group companies<br />
and are incorporated into the P&C Academy’s programs.<br />
Since 2012, the Global P&C’s NatCat team headed<br />
by Edzard Romaneessen supports <strong>Allianz</strong> entities<br />
in protecting their business both against NatCat events<br />
and risk accumulation in their portfolios.<br />
GLOBALPC@ALLIANZ.COM<br />
14<br />
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15
GLOBAL<br />
Dlouhy<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
both pictures: Roth<br />
accumulation in the subsidiaries can be addressed – a<br />
problem that was dramatically highlighted by the 2011<br />
flood in Thailand. “Our underwriters shouldn’t just focus<br />
on individual risks,” stresses Raimund Büllesbach, head<br />
of the P&C Academy. “They also have to understand<br />
how their underwriting practice could affect the exposure<br />
of the NatCat portfolio and eventually the Group’s<br />
overall result.”<br />
The NatCat team: (from left) meteorologist<br />
Markus Aichinger, oceanographer Edzard<br />
Romaneessen and economist Curzio Coli<br />
including the amounts insured and excesses. <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Risk Consultants (ARC) also uses Google Earth. So far,<br />
a similar instrument hasn’t been employed in the<br />
MidCorp business.<br />
Signal from Spain<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> board members Dieter Wemmer (left) and Michael<br />
Diekmann presented a positive outlook in Barcelona<br />
However, they need the technical tools to gain this overall<br />
view. That’s the crux of the matter: IT systems able<br />
to provide information about clusters of similar risks in a<br />
region are often missing – at least in the MidCorp business.<br />
Other departments are already more advanced in<br />
this respect. <strong>Allianz</strong> Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS),<br />
for instance, has been using Google Earth for years to<br />
identify cumulative risks before insuring major companies.<br />
Google Earth supplies the geodata, while the<br />
AGCS database provides information on insured objects,<br />
Of course, gaining a foothold in a market may mean<br />
deliberately underpricing policies, at least temporarily,<br />
explains Markus Aichinger: “Accepting such a lean period<br />
might make good sense in some circumstances, but you<br />
have to know what you’re doing and consider beforehand<br />
where to draw the line.” In the past, however, the miscalculation<br />
of risks and premiums has only been revealed<br />
by the occurrence of a major loss event, particularly in<br />
growth markets. The NatCat team at Global P&C aims to<br />
shield <strong>Allianz</strong> from such nasty surprises in the future.<br />
Up to now, <strong>Allianz</strong> has fared pretty well in the financial crisis, even sailing ahead<br />
of its competitors. At this year’s <strong>Allianz</strong> International in Barcelona, 200 top managers<br />
from more than 40 countries discussed ways to stay on top.<br />
PETRA KRÜLL<br />
Raimund Büllesbach:<br />
”Our underwriters<br />
shouldn’t just focus<br />
on individual risks”<br />
As a meteorologist, Aichinger naturally focuses mainly<br />
on storms, hail and flooding. “For us, atmospheric events<br />
cause the most damage,” he says. “But the risk is often<br />
inadequately reflected in premiums.” He’s hoping for a<br />
breathing space, since global warming has stagnated in<br />
the past 15 years: “Maybe that will give us some leeway<br />
for premiums to catch up.”<br />
GIN → ALLIANZ SE → H5 → GLOBAL P&C<br />
“<strong>Allianz</strong> is truly where I wanted it to be.”<br />
In his opening remarks at the <strong>Allianz</strong> International<br />
(AZI) in Barcelona in March, <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
CEO Michael Diekmann described how the<br />
Group again reached the top-position in<br />
the industry in terms of operating profits<br />
and how the asset base helped to mitigate<br />
the impact of a low interest rate environment.<br />
“Yes, we can be content,” he added<br />
but sent out a warning right afterwards:<br />
“There may be dangers lurking right behind<br />
the next corner.”<br />
As well as strategy and financials, digitalization,<br />
distribution, life products, investments<br />
and risks were the main topics on<br />
the agenda during the two day meeting.<br />
To face all present challenges, whether<br />
from higher capital requirements and lower<br />
interest rates or from growth opportunities<br />
in emerging markets, whether from<br />
digitalization or from the need to mitigate<br />
unforeseen developments, <strong>Allianz</strong> needs<br />
to create a common understanding of<br />
values and goals, Diekmann said.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> CFO Dieter Wemmer picked up<br />
the thread, emphasizing that regarding<br />
decisions on capital allocation it is crucial<br />
for the group to have a common language<br />
and how underwriting is key when it comes<br />
to expenditures. “We have all the right ingredients<br />
but we need to fight like lions<br />
when it comes to execution,” Wemmer said.<br />
In order to stay ahead of the competition<br />
and be a reliable partner for stakeholders,<br />
capital strength is the most important component<br />
for a financial service provider.<br />
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17
GLOBAL<br />
Shutterstock<br />
Europe<br />
To improve competitiveness, it’s important<br />
to simplify products and processes, emphasized<br />
many of the speakers. In addition,<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong>’s strong global brand, as well as smart<br />
acquisitions such as those in Belgium, France<br />
and recently in Turkey will provide for smart<br />
growth. But all agreed that the company’s<br />
integrity and reputation provides the foundation<br />
for its success.<br />
“A hell of a model”<br />
Digitalization was again one of the hot topics.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Seguros, the Spanish Group company<br />
has been at the forefront here. Their common<br />
business model and IT platform for the<br />
Ibero-Latin American region is a showcase<br />
for higher productivity, best service quality<br />
and efficiency. The transfer of know-how<br />
across the borders improved positions in<br />
local markets with different economic situations,<br />
and with Latin America opened up<br />
a third growth market for <strong>Allianz</strong> in addition<br />
to Asia and Eastern Europe. “A hell of a<br />
model”, as Michael Diekmann described it.<br />
Digitalization will change the way business<br />
is done because it changes the way people<br />
interact. Social media is everywhere and<br />
provides <strong>Allianz</strong> with a business opportunity<br />
by increasing the number of contact points<br />
with customers. Digital elements need to<br />
be integrated into the established business<br />
model to offer tied agents various access<br />
points to their clients. Furthermore, the<br />
ability to analyze and harness Big Data will<br />
help develop a holistic view of customers,<br />
allowing <strong>Allianz</strong> to foresee their needs,<br />
which might have an impact on pricing.<br />
To deliver on a global scale, <strong>Allianz</strong> needs<br />
to apply an integrated approach to client<br />
needs. “What we really care about is partnership,”<br />
Michael Diekmann said. The new<br />
Group wide initiative “<strong>Allianz</strong> Worldwide<br />
Partners” is an example. It bundles the expertise<br />
of the global entities <strong>Allianz</strong> Global<br />
Assistance, Global Automotive, <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Worldwide Care and the international health<br />
insurance of <strong>Allianz</strong> France to win business<br />
clients as partners and enable them to better<br />
fulfil their end customers’ needs.<br />
Another focus within Distribution was the<br />
broker business. More than a third of <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
insurance revenues are already generated<br />
through the broker channel but simply<br />
meeting basic needs is no longer enough to<br />
be the preferred supplier. The Global Broker<br />
Management Team provides the opportunity<br />
to leverage the <strong>Allianz</strong> global brand and<br />
financial strength and the existing expertise<br />
of local entities.<br />
The retail business is also changing. Customers<br />
who use digital channels no longer<br />
fit into the traditional distribution boxes. This<br />
challenge can be met by a multi access<br />
strategy, i.e. a modular product approach,<br />
different touch points, superior online experience<br />
and personal advice “on demand” –<br />
whenever and wherever the customer asks<br />
for it. <strong>Allianz</strong> Hungary has already successfully<br />
applied this model and enabled 1,600<br />
agents for the digital age.<br />
Demographic challenges<br />
Enabling customers to provide for old age<br />
was another field of discussion in Barcelona.<br />
“The social security systems cannot cover<br />
the demographic challenges, so life insurance<br />
is needed”, board member Maximilian<br />
Zimmerer pointed out. But how can <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
help customers provide for retirement in<br />
the low interest rate environment that will<br />
prevail in the years ahead? How can it control<br />
the business risks yet still meet clients’<br />
expectations of guarantees and returns on<br />
investment?<br />
As research shows, clients are willing to<br />
lower guarantee expectations in exchange<br />
for higher returns. Sales forces must be able<br />
to provide superior advice to customers to<br />
help them make the right choice between<br />
guarantees and return in accordance with<br />
their needs. As one presenter put it: “What is<br />
good for the clients will in the end be good<br />
for <strong>Allianz</strong>.”<br />
both pictures: Dlouhy<br />
Country of naggers?<br />
Democracy can be tedious: although it safeguards civic participation, decision<br />
processes can also degenerate into an endless tug-of-war. At this year’s <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Environmental Foundation talks at Benediktbeuern, discussions focused on<br />
how to reconcile people’s will with the viability of a modern political system.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
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19
EUROPE<br />
Darchinger<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
“Civic participation doesn’t mean that there<br />
will always be a socially desirable solution<br />
at the end of the day.” Beate Jessel<br />
danger that people will have a knee-jerk reaction to any<br />
given project,” added Jochen Homann from the Federal<br />
Network Agency. And he should know.<br />
Stuttgart 21: protest; Frankfurt Airport: protest; energy transition:<br />
everyone in favor; wind farms and overhead power<br />
lines: protest. All over Germany it’s the same story: no matter<br />
where a large-scale project is proposed, opposition isn’t<br />
far behind – well organized, grey-haired and obstinate.<br />
Are Germans a population of naggers, obstructionists and<br />
objectors? This was the question behind the theme of this<br />
year’s Benediktbeuern talks “The will of the people versus<br />
large-scale projects”, organized by Lutz Spandau, the Foundation’s<br />
CEO. It’s no surprise that there was plenty of discord.<br />
Claudia Roth probably had the most difficult role during the<br />
talks. As chair of Germany’s Green Party she attempted to<br />
represent both her party’s roots of direct democracy and the<br />
“realist” wing. She advocated more direct civic participation,<br />
while at the same time making it clear that as far as she is<br />
concerned, parliament remains the backbone of the decisionmaking<br />
process in a representative democracy. “At a certain<br />
point, politicians must make the decisions,” said Roth. Not<br />
everyone’s point of view can be accommodated.<br />
This was one of the few occasions when she agreed with<br />
the President of the German Federal Network Agency,<br />
Jochen Homann. However, Homann, whose responsibilities<br />
include ensuring fair competition in the power and gas sector,<br />
deplored many citizens’ “refusal to take responsibility”.<br />
People aren’t against abstract goals such as energy transition<br />
and expansion of the electricity grid, he said, but as soon as<br />
there are specific plans at regional and local level, the protests<br />
begin. So vested interests take precedence over the common<br />
good “irrespective of party affiliation.”<br />
“Rubbish,” countered Roth vigorously. The fact that expansion<br />
of the power grids in Germany has stalled is not the<br />
citizens’ fault, she said, but the energy companies’, who don’t<br />
consider investment in this area lucrative. Homann, however,<br />
was backed by Peter Schmitz, board member at Fraport AG,<br />
who also noted that many citizens are becoming increasingly<br />
opposed to change, in accordance with the motto “not<br />
in my backyard”. This is particularly odd when it comes to<br />
Frankfurt Airport, as everyone wants to fly but without the<br />
airports and noise that go with it. Schmitz is snowed under<br />
every month with around 175,000 letters of complaint<br />
from about 1,000 people in the surrounding area protesting<br />
against a new runway opened in 2011. And there is a demonstration<br />
every Monday at the airport – “as ritualistic as a<br />
Catholic mass,” says Schmitz.<br />
Species protection as project killer<br />
Anke Domscheit-Berg, internet activist and member of the<br />
Pirate Party, had more understanding for citizens’ anger and<br />
cited studies indicating that many people find the decisionmaking<br />
processes of large-scale projects opaque. Civic participation<br />
is nothing more than fraudulent labeling, she said:<br />
“The ‘if’ of a project is often neglected, and only the ‘how’<br />
discussed.” And mostly in language that the layperson can’t<br />
understand – “fig-leaf politics” as Domscheit-Berg put it.<br />
Beate Jessel, president of the Federal Agency for Nature<br />
Conservation, bemoaned the lack of transparency of many<br />
project procedures too. There should be open-ended discussions<br />
with regard to planning, she opined. In her view the<br />
people affected should be included early on in the process;<br />
and adequate compensation should be offered for any<br />
disadvantages incurred. Encroachment of the countryside<br />
by large-scale projects also influences people’s sense of<br />
belonging and regional identity. “And we must take these<br />
emotional components seriously,” said the professor for<br />
landscape development. On the other hand, she didn’t hide<br />
the fact that nature and species protection are sometimes<br />
used as a pretext to prevent unwelcome projects: protesters<br />
go out of their way to find some endangered animal or plant<br />
species in order to oppose an airport expansion, commuter<br />
train line, national park, hydroelectric plant, wind farm or<br />
underground cable.<br />
(From left) Anke Domscheit-Berg, Claudia Roth, Lutz Spandau, Beate Jessel,<br />
Peter Schmitz and Jochen Homann at the Benediktbeuern talks<br />
Progressive aging of the population will only make people<br />
more intransigent, said Peter Schmitz from Fraport.<br />
Demographic trends go hand in hand with a decrease in a<br />
willingness to change, he noted. The well-off “Wutbürger”<br />
(enraged citizen) isn’t thinking about his grandchildren’s<br />
generation or the country’s future. “I’m not very optimistic,”<br />
said Schmitz. “We’re becoming very inflexible.”<br />
Anke Domscheit-Berg, on the other hand, has witnessed a<br />
movement developing especially in the digital world that<br />
doesn’t reject or obstruct but gets involved, seeks an active<br />
part and isn’t frightened off by red tape. The influence of<br />
the internet community was evident in 2012 in the anti-ACTA<br />
movement, which Domscheit-Berg believes prevented a<br />
censorship infrastructure on the internet. In Hamburg, civil<br />
society groups initiated a transparency law, obliging the<br />
authorities to make all its data accessible on the internet –<br />
the first of its kind in Germany.<br />
“Of course civic participation doesn’t mean that there will<br />
always be a socially desirable solution at the end of the day,”<br />
Beate Jessel cautioned, before anyone got too excited. In<br />
the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, for instance, the<br />
coalition government of Greens and Social Democrats is at<br />
loggerheads with the electorate, which is firmly against a<br />
national park in the northern Black Forest. In North Rhine<br />
Westphalia the will of the people has already prevented<br />
the establishment of a national park. “There’s a substantial<br />
Sometimes opposition produces strange results: while the<br />
citizen’s army in one region is against underground electric<br />
cables, the people in another region are vehemently in favor<br />
of it to put a stop to high voltage above ground power lines.<br />
“You sometimes get the impression that protests have<br />
become the business model of assessors and lawyers,” said<br />
Homann. Politicians haven’t been any real use to him in these<br />
disputes. The greatest risk to energy transition is the disagreement<br />
between the federal states about the future of<br />
energy supply, he cautioned. “Sixteen different opinions<br />
add up to a load of nonsense in the end. We suffer under<br />
federalism when it comes to this issue.”<br />
The guilty party<br />
Claudia Roth, who could hardly contain her anger during<br />
Homann’s statement, accused the government of being the<br />
guilty party in the energy transition debacle. It’s unacceptable<br />
that the Environment Ministry and Ministry of Economics<br />
are at odds with each other in this matter, said the Green<br />
politician: “We need coherence. It should have top priority in<br />
the Chancellery.” Peter Schmitz concurred. “Politicians must<br />
put forward a clear policy,” he said.<br />
In the controversial prestige project Stuttgart 21, Roth’s party<br />
has just had the painful experience that a clear policy isn’t<br />
always enough. Although the Greens were emphatically<br />
against the railway project, a majority in the 2011 referendum<br />
voted against withdrawal of the federal state. The regional<br />
government led by the Greens now has to implement the<br />
development plan. “We crashed and burned,” admits Roth.<br />
But she was in no doubt that direct civic participation is indispensable<br />
for a living democracy. “Even if it hurts sometimes.”<br />
HTTPS://UMWELTSTIFTUNG.ALLIANZ.DE<br />
“You sometimes get the impression that protests have become<br />
the business model of assessors and lawyers.” Jochen Homann<br />
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Of the end of men and<br />
the cowardice of women<br />
Well over a year ago the percentage of women in top and middle management in<br />
German corporations was just under 15 percent. That figure hasn’t increased much<br />
since. The Fraunhofer Society has conducted a study on the reasons for the dearth<br />
of women at executive level.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
The issue of women and careers produces conflicting messages. Whereas the US author<br />
Hanna Rosin proclaimed “The End of Men” in her latest book, the German journalist Bascha<br />
Mika has written over 200 pages bemoaning “The Cowardice of Women”. What stops<br />
women from advancing in their careers? Do they not want to? Are they unable to? Are<br />
they the victims of male alliances that nip their ambitions in the bud?<br />
In a study report entitled “Changing corporate culture – avoiding career breaks”, published<br />
at the end of last year, the Fraunhofer Society investigated the causes behind the<br />
lack of women in the corporate corridors of power. Nine major companies, including<br />
Daimler, Bosch, EADS, Microsoft and <strong>Allianz</strong> Germany, took part in the study, in which<br />
220 male and female managers were interviewed between March and November 2011.<br />
The result: men and women are incompatible – at least as far as their ideas on promotion<br />
and career are concerned.<br />
Children as a stumbling block<br />
The Fraunhofer study, written by four female authors, concludes: “A comprehensive change<br />
in corporate culture is needed to boost the percentage of women in management positions.”<br />
Mentoring and seminars organized specifically for women are not enough to prevent career<br />
breaks. Quite the contrary, according to one of the surprising findings in the study, such<br />
programs can be counterproductive. This is because special programs to promote women<br />
reinforce prejudices that women have leadership deficiencies that must be redressed with<br />
the help of specific measures.<br />
Other findings of the study were less surprising, for instance, that children hamper<br />
a woman’s career but not that of the proud father. Or that men and women<br />
are officially allowed to take time off or work part-time, but in reality these<br />
opportunities are usually taken up only by women. Interestingly, the study<br />
revealed that if a man takes parental leave, the harm caused to his<br />
career is much greater than that incurred by a woman.<br />
Male and female employees who take a break, “are usually not at the<br />
focus of employment decisions,” is how the female authors gallantly<br />
paraphrase the current discriminatory practice in many companies.<br />
Only taking short parental leave would not be detrimental to a career.<br />
Shutterstock<br />
According to the study, “supervisors and HR departments are often oblivious to the constraints<br />
that different life stages place on career decisions”. In other words, those who plan<br />
their career paths around their personal circumstances are regarded as inflexible. “A longterm<br />
career plan oriented around a person’s life stages,” states the sobering conclusion of<br />
the Fraunhofer study, “is currently neither implemented nor accepted.”<br />
For women in particular, it is a major disadvantage that careers in middle and top management<br />
are decided between the ages of 30 and 40 – which often coincides with the family<br />
stage in life. Late careers from the age of 40 are rare. Female managers wishing to return to<br />
work after maternity leave must first see where there’s a suitable job for them in the company.<br />
And systematic return-to-work programs? Mostly non-existent. On the other hand,<br />
these women still have a good 20 years to go before retirement. By ignoring the abilities<br />
and experience of female employees who take a career break to have children, companies<br />
throw away a lot of potential, say the Fraunhofer authors.<br />
Consequently, higher management positions are often taken up by people without any duties<br />
or family obligations outside work. Quoting from the study: “For the most part, male managers<br />
with children are in relationships in which their partners either don’t work or only work parttime<br />
and can therefore take on many of the family obligations. Female managers frequently<br />
have professional partners who work full-time and are more likely to be childless than their<br />
male colleagues.”<br />
The economic card<br />
A commercial enterprise isn’t a charity of course. That’s why the authors of the study don’t<br />
even attempt to address the topic of fairness between men and women. Instead, they play<br />
the economic card and repeatedly point out the productive benefit of a higher percentage of<br />
women to a company. Comparative studies have confirmed the economic advantages. Even<br />
men understand that.<br />
However, men are becoming increasingly concerned that they could be at a disadvantage<br />
if social pressures elevate more women into management positions. One of the men<br />
interviewed thought that companies often over-egged the pudding by trying to<br />
make up for the failings of past generations: “Young male colleagues then<br />
say: I have no chance of getting ahead here.”<br />
But the end of men? It probably hasn’t come to that just yet. Often,<br />
according to complaints by HR staff, diversity managers and headhunters,<br />
women don’t want to take on managerial tasks – at least not<br />
under the present conditions where they feel that not enough allowance<br />
is made for their circumstances and where they have to work<br />
harder in order to gain the same level of appreciation and recognition<br />
as men. But this probably doesn’t have much to do with cowardice as<br />
Bascha Mika thinks.<br />
WWW.UNTERNEHMENSKULTUREN-VERAENDERN.DE<br />
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The number of 18-to-20-year-olds in Germany who have<br />
fallen into debt has more than trebled since 2004. The situation<br />
is hardly better in other countries. The foundation My Finance<br />
Coach has developed a program to address this issue.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
Caution: debt trap!<br />
Even adults can find it hard to resist the temptations<br />
of the consumer world. So how are children and adolescents<br />
supposed to cope, especially since they don’t<br />
learn how to manage their money at school? To fill this<br />
educational gap, <strong>Allianz</strong>, management consulting firm<br />
McKinsey and marketing agency Grey set up My Finance<br />
Coach in 2010. In the meantime, accounting firm KPMG<br />
and conglomerate Haniel have joined the club.<br />
Praised by some for its commitment and viewed critically<br />
by others, the foundation is now active in Germany,<br />
Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Argentina. “Naivety<br />
about money matters is a global problem,” says managing<br />
director Christian Keller. “Young people need practical<br />
financial instruction to act as responsible consumers.”<br />
My Finance Coach goes where the knowledge gaps<br />
are the greatest: in less academic secondary schools.<br />
It presents lesson material developed by experts and<br />
sends employees from the founding companies to coach<br />
students. But consumer protection agencies remain<br />
skeptical. They are afraid that big business will exert too<br />
Generation smartphone: My Finance Coach<br />
explains where hidden costs lie<br />
much sway on the lesson content in schools and that the<br />
participating companies could engage in subliminal lobbying<br />
in the classroom. But that’s precisely what doesn’t<br />
happen with My Finance Coach, says Christian Keller<br />
reassuringly.<br />
The charitable foundation was declared an official<br />
project of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable<br />
Development in 2011 and was awarded the Comenius<br />
Seal for exemplary educational media by the German<br />
Society for Pedagogy and Information. Coaches must<br />
confirm in writing that they will not use the lessons for<br />
marketing purposes. No company brochures, no advertising<br />
material, not even a ballpoint pen bearing the<br />
company logo are allowed.<br />
Since the project’s launch in 2010, 1350 coaches in<br />
Germany have instructed over 200,000 students aged<br />
between 10 and 16 on the ins and outs of financial matters:<br />
how to manage money, how to recognize hidden<br />
costs and how to avoid exceeding one’s budget. Some of<br />
the modules, which have been devised by teachers and<br />
Shutterstock<br />
My Finance Coach<br />
Christian<br />
Keller<br />
“Everything is<br />
above board”<br />
My Finance Coach, an initiative of <strong>Allianz</strong>, Grey,<br />
McKinsey, Haniel and KPMG, was set up to teach<br />
school children how to manage their money wisely.<br />
Critics are skeptical. We interviewed the managing<br />
director of My Finance Coach, Christian Keller.<br />
Mr. Keller, how independent is My Finance Coach?<br />
Well, we have no financial agenda, if that’s what you<br />
mean. Our work has nothing to do with marketing, sales<br />
or data collecting. Our aim is to prepare young people<br />
for life in general and to fill a gap in their knowledge<br />
that the school curriculum evidently fails to address.<br />
In this respect we’re assuming an important social and<br />
political role. In the best-case scenario we’re educating<br />
a new generation of young adults who will have a more<br />
informed approach to their finances. In the long run this<br />
will benefit everyone, not just the initiators of My Finance<br />
Coach. Young people will be more knowledgeable about<br />
money matters – whether they’re purchasing a car, an<br />
insurance policy or a cell phone. In the end, our commitment<br />
today will help prevent people from falling into<br />
debt in the future.<br />
Critics fear that the business community could<br />
exert a subliminal influence on the teaching of the<br />
subject.<br />
All our lesson materials are freely available on the<br />
internet – and that’s an important seal of approval.<br />
Everything is above board. We’ve established a code of<br />
conduct that forbids our coaches from engaging in any<br />
form of advertising in the classroom. Violators can<br />
be prosecuted under employment laws. That’s no<br />
joke. The trust that pupils and teachers ▶<br />
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<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
50.4<br />
47.8<br />
46.3<br />
44.6<br />
43.8<br />
43.7<br />
42.3<br />
41.9<br />
41.7<br />
41.7<br />
40.8<br />
40.3<br />
39.9<br />
39.4<br />
39.1<br />
38.6<br />
38.0<br />
38.0<br />
37.4<br />
37.1<br />
35.9<br />
35.6<br />
35.0<br />
34.4<br />
34.0<br />
31.8<br />
Brazil<br />
Mexico<br />
Australia<br />
USA<br />
Canada<br />
New Zealand<br />
Japan<br />
Belarus<br />
Thailand<br />
Malaysia<br />
International Financial Literacy Barometer – ranking of 28 countries<br />
(Visa study 2012, maximum score: 100)<br />
27.7<br />
27.3<br />
UAE<br />
Lebanon<br />
Taiwan<br />
Egypt<br />
Bosnia<br />
China<br />
Hong Kong<br />
Saudi Arabia<br />
Russia<br />
Serbia<br />
Ukraine<br />
Colombia<br />
India<br />
Morocco<br />
South Africa<br />
Vietnam<br />
Indonesia<br />
Pakistan<br />
educational researchers, are dedicated to the internet.<br />
Students are told how to protect their personal data, they<br />
are warned about the addictive potential of online gaming<br />
and learn how to avoid the pitfalls of “free offers”.<br />
But it isn’t just students who benefit from the coaching.<br />
My Finance Coach also offers financial literacy workshops<br />
to teachers as well as free online modules<br />
to continue training. Demand is growing. Over 30 companies<br />
and organizations have joined the initiative.<br />
They include the SOS Children’s Village Association,<br />
the German Business Foundation, Munich Technical<br />
University and the weekly German business magazine<br />
Wirtschaftswoche among others.<br />
Following the successful launch of My Finance Coach<br />
in Germany and pilot projects in Asia and Latin America,<br />
similar schemes are sprouting up the world over. Programs<br />
are now in planning in Ireland, France, Poland,<br />
the UK and Brazil, and many other countries intend to<br />
follow suit. As far as purchasing, planning and saving are<br />
concerned, there appears to be a lot of catching up to do.<br />
Anyone can fall into debt.<br />
WWW.MYFINANCECOACH.COM<br />
“An extraordinarily<br />
ugly species”<br />
place in us is a precious commodity that we need to<br />
handle with the utmost care.<br />
Why are you focusing on less academic secondary<br />
schools? Don’t students in the more academic schools<br />
have debt problems too?<br />
Sure they have. However, most financial literacy initiatives<br />
are aimed precisely at those schools. Students in less<br />
academic schools receive far less attention. And they are<br />
particularly grateful for our support in this area. We get to<br />
know terrific young people who perhaps don’t always get<br />
the encouragement that their peers in other schools get.<br />
What specific advice do your coaches give the school<br />
children?<br />
We tell them that when it comes to money, always sleep<br />
on a decision. Never sign a contract immediately. You can<br />
avoid a rude awakening if you take your time and get more<br />
quotes for comparison.<br />
Do you also make them aware of the tricks of dodgy<br />
financial advisers?<br />
We tell them what they should look for in any business<br />
deal: cost, profit and risk. And not least of all to ask the<br />
question: when will I recover my money? They must make<br />
it a rule to ask about the risk whenever someone promises<br />
them a fantastic profit. How much risk does that involve?<br />
Could I lose everything? They need the presence of mind<br />
to wait a while and not yield to their first impulse. We also<br />
advise them to get independent advice, from Finanztest,<br />
for instance, or from consumer protection agencies.<br />
© Bjorn Olesen<br />
Sex is more the exception than the rule, their food is purely vegetarian,<br />
and they work hard most of the time – the life of a naked mole rat is, on<br />
the whole, extremely tedious. It’s a long one too: the wrinkly rodents<br />
can live for up to 30 years – an unusually long time for animals of this<br />
size. Scientists are hot on the trail of their secret of longevity.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
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Shutterstock<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
in relatively good health. Early this year Buffenstein<br />
received the Longevity Research Award worth 15,000<br />
euros from <strong>Allianz</strong> France and the French Healthcare<br />
Association Les Associations de Prévoyance Santé for her<br />
pioneering work.<br />
AFRICA<br />
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But when we look<br />
at the East African naked mole rat everyone can only<br />
agree with the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace,<br />
who described the tunnel digger as “an extraordinarily<br />
KENYA<br />
ETHIOPIA<br />
SOMALIA<br />
ugly species”. Its skin is already wrinkled at birth, its eyes<br />
are covered by thick lids, and its protruding teeth are<br />
enormous – Heterocephalus glaber, the “hairless otherheaded”,<br />
is an evolutionary quirk.<br />
The secret of longevity<br />
Naked mole rats are able to remove damaged proteins to<br />
prevent toxic build-up in their bodies. Their low metabolic<br />
rate may also help to slow down aging. Naked mole rats<br />
who can be found mainly in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia<br />
are cancer-proof. They have a gene to prevent cancer-causing<br />
cell mutation. They are also immune to pain.<br />
A quirk admittedly that has fascinated scientists ever<br />
since the animal was first described by the German<br />
biologist Eduard Rüppell in 1842. This is partly due to<br />
the fact that the naked mole rat lives in colonies that are<br />
organized in a similar way to an ant or bee colony – a<br />
unique social structure among mammals. The mousesize<br />
animal also contradicts conventional wisdom that<br />
small species have a shorter lifespan than larger ones:<br />
Unlike mice, which usually survive for no more than<br />
three years, naked mole rats can live for 30 years, biblical<br />
by comparison, and remain healthy to boot.<br />
The naked mole rat is thus a perfect research object<br />
for scientists like Rochelle Buffenstein of the Barshop<br />
Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University<br />
of Texas. The American is researching the cellular<br />
mechanisms that permit the naked mole rat to age<br />
Some might find it a bit disconcerting that the pinnacle<br />
of creation is seeking analogies in a creature that fate has<br />
so blatantly dealt a bad hand. But maybe naked mole rats<br />
actually do carry the secret of longevity in their wrinkled<br />
little bodies. There is at least some evidence that their<br />
life expectancy is increased by sexual abstinence, calorie<br />
restriction and constant physical activity. Still, with such a<br />
life in prospect, we might ask “what for”?<br />
Only the queen and one to three males provide offspring<br />
in the colony. The others dig fresh tunnels the day long in<br />
search of food, clean the burrow and look after the pups.<br />
If the queen dies, the females next in line to the throne<br />
often engage in violent fighting, shredding each other’s<br />
wrinkly skins to the bone, sometimes with fatal consequences.<br />
Males, on the other hand, don’t exactly fall over<br />
themselves for a place at court. It is still unclear why<br />
those who then come forward to mate with the queen<br />
suddenly age rapidly – but we have our suspicions.<br />
It’s also a mystery why, despite a high rate of incest, the<br />
sausage-like Methuselahs rarely suffer from hereditary<br />
diseases or why they don’t succumb to cancer or osteoporosis<br />
in old age. Meanwhile, humans are living longer<br />
even without solving the naked mole rat code. According<br />
to the UN, there are already over 340,000 men and<br />
women in the world who are one hundred years old or<br />
older. In 2050 there will probably be ten times that many.<br />
Statistically speaking, well-educated women have the<br />
greatest chance of reaching 100. This adds a whole new<br />
meaning to the phrase “learning for life”.<br />
HTTP://BARSHOPINSTITUTE.UTHSCSA.EDU<br />
340,000<br />
3,400,000<br />
2013 2050<br />
CENTENARIANS<br />
WORLDWIDE<br />
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<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
On the edge<br />
The country’s economic situation is currently in keeping with its geographic<br />
position: Portugal is right on the edge. The erstwhile colonial power is one of<br />
the poorest states in the European Union. Prime Minister Coelho has even<br />
encouraged his countrymen to emigrate.<br />
all pictures: Stern<br />
ALL TEXTS ON PORTUGAL: FRANK STERN<br />
ALLIANZ PORTUGAL<br />
If Portugal is deserted one day, which in view of the low<br />
birthrate and rapidly increasing number of emigrants<br />
can’t be long in coming, its inhabitants will be remembered<br />
for two achievements: for the world weariness<br />
inherent in its melancholic fado music and for its bloodred<br />
wine in which it drowned its sorrows. Portugal’s<br />
history has often provided reasons to savor both these<br />
things, but the current crisis must be one of the most<br />
difficult that this country on the southwestern tip of<br />
Europe has ever endured.<br />
Unemployment is at 17 percent, while youth unemployment<br />
has reached 40 percent. The 15-to-24-year-old<br />
age group is worse off only in Spain and Greece, where<br />
respectively 56 percent and 60 percent of young people<br />
are without a job. An end to this downward trend is not<br />
in sight. Economic performance in 2012 contracted by<br />
3.2 percent, and a 2.3 percent shrinkage is forecast for<br />
this year. The Portuguese economy had not been running<br />
smoothly in previous years either. Experts have<br />
written off the first ten years of the 21st century as a lost<br />
decade. It could be 2014 before the country experiences<br />
a slight upswing, though this is by no means certain.<br />
At least the state was spared bankruptcy, thanks to a<br />
rescue package from the European Commission, the<br />
European Central Bank and the International Monetary<br />
Fund to the tune of EUR 78 billion. Although the constitutional<br />
court blocked some cuts, the prime minister has<br />
stuck to his rigid austerity measures with which he hopes<br />
to steer the country into safer waters. But hundreds of<br />
thousands of people have taken to the streets in protest.<br />
This is a clear sign of an impending storm – things have<br />
to be pretty bad before the Portuguese take to the streets.<br />
Portugal’s ex-premier Soares has recently called for the<br />
overthrow of the government – also a rare occurrence.<br />
In view of the precarious situation, Prime Minister Coelho<br />
has called on his unemployed countrymen to emigrate –<br />
to Brazil for example or to the former Portuguese colonies<br />
in Africa. Many Portuguese have taken this advice to heart<br />
and turned their back on their native country. Observers<br />
speak of the greatest exodus the country has ever seen,<br />
although, unlike the 1960s and 70s, today it is mainly the<br />
well trained who are trying their luck far from home. This<br />
bloodletting could cost the country dearly in the future.<br />
Employees: 550<br />
Agents: 4500<br />
Offices: 30<br />
Customers: 865,000<br />
Premium income 2012<br />
P&C: EUR 316 million (+5 %)<br />
Life: EUR 190 million (-2.3 %)<br />
Market position overall: Ranking: 5th<br />
Market share overall: 4.6 %<br />
P&C insurance:<br />
Ranking: 3rd<br />
Market share: 8.7 %<br />
Life insurance:<br />
Ranking: 7th<br />
Market share: 2 %<br />
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both pictures: Stern<br />
Teresa Godinho is the first female<br />
CEO of an <strong>Allianz</strong> insurance company in<br />
Europe. Before the economist took up her<br />
post in Lisbon in 2011 she already had<br />
17 years’ experience in various <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
companies behind her, most notably as<br />
Chief Financial Officer and head of Risk<br />
Management at <strong>Allianz</strong> Brazil.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
“We have to fight hard” –<br />
(back row from left) Rui Silva,<br />
Ivany Sousa and Rosa Nobre,<br />
with their assistants<br />
The price of success<br />
Portugal is going through a difficult period. Economic output is declining and unemployment is at record levels.<br />
The insurance industry is also suffering – except <strong>Allianz</strong> Portugal. We talked to CEO Teresa Godinho about the price of success.<br />
former Eastern bloc. But behind the uninspiring façade<br />
the three agents are showing everyone how to buck<br />
the trend and be successful. They got together three<br />
years ago, and twelve months later they were already<br />
one of <strong>Allianz</strong> Portugal’s most successful agencies. And<br />
despite a collapse in car sales across the country, the<br />
number of car policies they sell is still rising. But business<br />
is getting tougher. “We have to fight hard,” says Ivany<br />
Sousa. “Customers keep calling us to ask for a reduction<br />
in their premiums.”<br />
Mrs. Godinho, for some time now we’ve<br />
been hearing only depressing news from<br />
Portugal. Can you see a silver lining on<br />
the horizon?<br />
I’m a positive person and I want to believe in<br />
a turnaround. In the past few months Portugal<br />
has done a great deal to achieve this, and that<br />
gives me confidence. But we need further<br />
reforms, for instance in the tax system and<br />
labor legislation. At the moment no one can<br />
say how things will turn out. Even though we<br />
Portuguese don’t often take to the streets,<br />
dissatisfaction is rife.<br />
What do the Portuguese think about<br />
the euro and the European Union?<br />
I think no one in a position of responsibility<br />
here wants to leave the eurozone. Of course<br />
a few economists are advocating that in<br />
the media, but they remain in the minority.<br />
The Portuguese don’t want to be isolated<br />
again as we were during 40 years of dictatorship<br />
under Salazar. The motto at the time<br />
was “proudly alone”. Many people remember<br />
that time all too well and what it meant<br />
for the country.<br />
The insurance market in Portugal<br />
is shrinking, yet <strong>Allianz</strong> Portugal is<br />
growing. How can that be?<br />
There are several reasons. Firstly, four years<br />
ago we began to revamp all our working<br />
methods – not just our internal processes<br />
but also our dealings with customers and<br />
agents. We have 30 branches across the<br />
country, which are there for the sole purpose<br />
of supporting agents so they can give their<br />
customers the best service possible. We<br />
want to be the preferred partner in Portugal<br />
for free agents.<br />
We developed a simply structured product<br />
range for them, which we offer as packages.<br />
These bundled policies enable us to reduce<br />
internal costs and pitch our products at very<br />
competitive prices. This is how you can do<br />
healthy business even in a low-profit market<br />
like Portugal.<br />
In addition, many people are worried about<br />
their savings. They’re losing trust in the<br />
banks and are increasingly turning to insurance<br />
companies. Of course when it comes<br />
to savings, we’re not like the Germans. We<br />
spend our money more readily, we enjoy<br />
life. But saving rates have increased since<br />
the crisis.<br />
What was the price of success at<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Portugal?<br />
We had to cut our back office staff by<br />
20 percent. But this adjustment put <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
Portugal on a firm footing. Today we’re the<br />
most efficient insurance company in the<br />
country. Even now in this major crisis we’re<br />
in a stable position. That conveys a positive<br />
message to all our employees and it gives<br />
them security. We’re even recruiting trainees<br />
from the best universities again.<br />
Many young Portuguese are now trying<br />
their luck abroad. Are applicants thin on<br />
the ground?<br />
No, we have enough people to choose from.<br />
But if the crisis continues, more young people<br />
will probably emigrate. That would be a bad<br />
sign because it would mean that the economy<br />
is failing to generate enough growth to offer<br />
our people a future in their own country.<br />
If there’s anything positive to glean from the<br />
situation, it’s that young people working<br />
abroad will gain experience that they’ll be<br />
able to apply to the benefit of the country<br />
when they return.<br />
If they return.<br />
Most of them will – and will be better trained<br />
and will have experience of other countries<br />
and cultures under their belt. That will be an<br />
asset for our country.<br />
Bucking the trend<br />
Many Portuguese don’t have a good word to say<br />
about Germany at the moment. German virtues<br />
on the other hand are very popular, and that’s<br />
one reason why the insurance agency run by<br />
Rosa Nobre, Rui Silva and Ivany Sousa is thriving,<br />
despite the crisis.<br />
Many of their friends have left already, particularly those<br />
in technical professions, heading for Africa and South<br />
America, the UK and France, Norway and Germany.<br />
One even ended up in Uzbekistan – a destination one<br />
might consider out of desperation or for a heap of<br />
money. Rosa Nobre, Rui Silva and Ivany Sousa stayed –<br />
Portuguese insurance agents aren’t as sought after as<br />
civil engineers abroad.<br />
Their agency is in the Benfica district, not far from the<br />
stadium of the same name, in a residential area with<br />
the charm of a prefabricated housing estate in the<br />
No wonder, after all the austerity measures the government<br />
has imposed to meet the demands of the troika<br />
(European Commission, European Central Bank and<br />
International Monetary Fund): cuts to pensions and unemployment<br />
benefits, an increase in VAT, redundancies<br />
in the public sector – the list goes on and on. Insurance<br />
agents feel the effects of the crisis also in their corporate<br />
business. Last year twenty companies went bankrupt<br />
across the country every day and premiums and profit<br />
margins went south.<br />
Unlike in Germany, where <strong>Allianz</strong> works with a network<br />
of exclusive agents, <strong>Allianz</strong> in Portugal operates with<br />
brokers and free agents. The Benfica trio, who serve<br />
almost 5,000 customers, has several irons in the fire.<br />
But 85 percent of all policies they sell sport the <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
logo. “A safe bank in these uncertain times,” says Rui<br />
Silva.<br />
Although many Portuguese believe that Germany is<br />
behind the tough fiscal measures of the troika – they<br />
still trust the unloved Teutons to look after their money.<br />
“Integrity, trustworthiness and financial solidity are<br />
German hallmarks,” says Rosa Nobre. These are the best<br />
selling points that she and her two partners can offer<br />
in the current situation. “Our customers are confident<br />
that they’re better off putting their trust in a German<br />
company.”<br />
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EUROPE<br />
Shutterstock<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Global Investors is one of the first major asset managers to set up<br />
an infrastructure debt fund for institutional investors. Demand for project<br />
financing is huge: according to the latest estimates by the EU Commission,<br />
infrastructure investments to the tune of up two trillion euros will be<br />
needed in Europe alone by the end of the decade.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
Europe as a<br />
building site<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Global Investors<br />
The Infrastructure Debt team: (from left) Adrian Jones, François-Yves Gaudeul, Deborah Zurkow,<br />
Claus Fintzen and Paul David<br />
Streets and airports, local public transport<br />
and water utilities, power grids, hospitals<br />
and schools – the list of infrastructure<br />
projects planned for Europe by the end of<br />
the decade is extensive. If all come to fruition,<br />
the old continent will be transformed<br />
into one enormous building site during the<br />
coming years. However, with state budgets<br />
constrained and banks, faced with stricter<br />
capital investment regulations, less inclined<br />
to finance new, large-scale projects such<br />
ambitious funding requirements stand on<br />
shaky ground.<br />
Up to two trillion euros will be needed in<br />
the next few years to maintain and expand<br />
Europe’s infrastructure, says the EU. New<br />
sources of investment – insurers, pension<br />
funds and other institutional investors looking<br />
for more attractive long term returns<br />
than can be achieved with government<br />
bonds – may be able to take up the slack.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Global Investors has become one<br />
of the first major investment managers to<br />
establish a specialized infrastructure debt<br />
team, which will offer clients access to a<br />
range of investment-grade projects. “We’re<br />
not focusing on power stations in developing<br />
countries or coal mines or oil platforms,”<br />
explains finance expert Deborah Zurkow,<br />
who heads the Infrastructure Debt platform<br />
with a team of four. “There is a sizable pipeline<br />
of transactions in communal electricity<br />
and water supplies, schools, roads and hospitals<br />
in EU states.” Studies by Moody’s and<br />
Standard & Poor’s have shown that the risk<br />
of losing money in these kinds of cooperation<br />
projects between the state and private<br />
sector is small.<br />
In financing public construction projects,<br />
the Infrastructure Debt platform generates<br />
steady cash flow from usage fees for roads,<br />
water and power, as well as from public<br />
funding and leases over an agreed period<br />
of around 30 years. “Both investors in search<br />
of stable returns and developers who wish<br />
to secure project financing will benefit from<br />
private financing of government infrastructure<br />
requirements,” explains Zurkow.<br />
With guaranteed long-term returns, the<br />
bricks-and-mortar business is eminently<br />
suitable for pension funds and insurance<br />
companies that have agreed long-term<br />
payment obligations with their clients, says<br />
Zurkow. By partnering with experienced<br />
construction companies, construction and<br />
planning risks are largely mitigated.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Global Investors is offering its clients<br />
a range of opportunities from bespoke<br />
investments to pooled investment vehicles.<br />
A UK infrastructure debt fund will be<br />
launched in the near future and is to be<br />
followed by a euro-denominated fund<br />
shortly after. The demand appears to be<br />
there. “There’s enormous interest,” says<br />
Deborah Zurkow. “We’re in the process<br />
of establishing a new market.”<br />
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EUROPE<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Linda Kennedy<br />
even skipped lunch<br />
for Lewis Hamilton<br />
private<br />
Linda Kennedy, after being with <strong>Allianz</strong> UK for 50 years, was presented<br />
with a special gift from her colleagues. She could choose between a<br />
visit of the British Grand Prix in Silverstone or the F1 winter testing in<br />
Barcelona. For her, the choice was easy. Here is her report:<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> | rechts unten: Shutterstock<br />
LINDA KENNEDY<br />
Tryst with<br />
Lewis Hamilton<br />
Soggy Silverstone or Barcelona? For me and my husband there was no<br />
contest here. On 18th February, we flew off from Leeds Bradford to Spain.<br />
Flight was good, the hotel was very nice also and the following morning<br />
we got up to prepare for our trip to the Circuit de Catalunya. On the<br />
grounds that I might actually see someone famous, I made a bit of an<br />
effort and we then awaited our taxi (somewhat nervously).<br />
I need not have worried. When we arrived at the circuit, we were met by<br />
the <strong>Allianz</strong> F1 team and their tour guide. They were all absolutely amazing<br />
and we could not have had better treatment. We were shown to the Mercedes hospitality area<br />
and then spent a little time watching the drivers testing. The guide then took us off to the Mercedes garage (no photos<br />
allowed in there for obvious reasons) and we sat down whilst they worked on the F1 car. It was in absolute bits as the<br />
driver of the day, Nico Rosberg had had a gearbox problem that morning. Unbelievably they got the car fixed and out on<br />
track again after lunch.<br />
We then walked down the pit lane, saw all the other teams’ cars, had loads of photos taken with the car, the steering<br />
wheel (worth £35,000!), the jack and the “lollipop”. After all of that, we went back to Mercedes hospitality for some lunch.<br />
Halfway through that, one of the <strong>Allianz</strong> F1 team came and whispered in my ear: “If you come and stand near the door<br />
now, Lewis Hamilton is going to do a Q & A session in about three minutes.” Well obviously, him being my hero, I didn’t<br />
waste any time. Lunch was forgotten and I stood there to await his presence.<br />
Lewis was lovely. He was so friendly and laid back with everyone. Chatted for a few minutes about the team and the car<br />
and how it was all going. Then we were able to meet him personally, get his autograph and have photos taken with him.<br />
The rest of the afternoon was spent viewing from the gallery (ear defenders at the ready) and then our guide took us back<br />
to the hotel in Barcelona.<br />
I think the experience of winter testing just proved to me how much hard work goes on with the F1 teams,<br />
not just the Grand Prix but actually seeing the guys working in the garage on the car. Everyone knew<br />
what their job was and just got on with it. A real view of team working and collaboration which we<br />
can apply anywhere.<br />
This was certainly a day never to be forgotten and I can’t thank everyone involved<br />
in arranging it enough. It was worth working 50 years with <strong>Allianz</strong> to get that<br />
opportunity!<br />
LINDA.KENNEDY@ALLIANZ.CO.UK<br />
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The Americas<br />
Englerth<br />
in New Jersey. The wind was so fierce we could barely make ourselves<br />
heard above its roar. Again and again we heard large pieces<br />
of debris, which the storm had hurled through the air, crash onto<br />
the roof. The next morning revealed the extent of the damage: The<br />
streets were impassable, there was no electricity, telephone service<br />
or heating. Stores and restaurants were closed until further notice.<br />
Team Orange in action: Jürgen Englerth and other marathon<br />
runners pitched in to help the people in the flooded areas of Brooklyn<br />
and Staten Island<br />
“It was like a war zone”<br />
On October 29, 2012 Hurricane Sandy hit the<br />
east coast of the USA. The tropical cyclone<br />
caused severe damage and claimed scores of<br />
lives. Jürgen Englerth of <strong>Allianz</strong> Deutschland in<br />
Munich was visiting New Jersey when the<br />
storm struck. This is his report:<br />
JÜRGEN ENGLERTH<br />
On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy caused 120 deaths and<br />
damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes on the eastern<br />
seaboard of the United States. The storm had previously also<br />
wreaked havoc in the Caribbean. Aid funds, which have since been<br />
released, will be disbursed over a period of ten years. Some of the<br />
money will go to affected homeowners and businesses, but much<br />
is earmarked specifically for repairing damaged infrastructure and<br />
providing better sea defenses against future storms.<br />
I flew to the USA at the end of October 2012 to visit my family and<br />
to run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C. and the New<br />
York Marathon a week later as part of a charity campaign. There were<br />
warnings of approaching bad weather before the start of the Marine<br />
Corps Marathon, but at that point no one had any idea it would turn<br />
out to be the worst storm ever to hit New York City and New Jersey.<br />
In the end, with interruptions, I was there for almost two months,<br />
helping my family and the victims of the flooded areas. I spent the<br />
night of the storm with my 92-year-old mother-in-law in her house<br />
Shutterstock<br />
In the following days I was kept busy finding safe places for my<br />
mother-in-law to stay and to rustle up gas and food. Long lines<br />
formed in front of the few filling stations that still had fuel. There<br />
was up to a six-hour wait. Since public life had completely broken<br />
down, people were totally reliant on their cars to reach safe, warm<br />
places equipped with generators: city halls, emergency stations<br />
and some cafes where people gathered and waited for the power<br />
supply to come back on.<br />
In the space of a few days the situation deteriorated from being<br />
bothersome to life-threatening. Temperatures fell to minus five<br />
degrees Celsius, and fuel became scarce. To crown it all, heavy<br />
snow fell in the second week. I therefore decided to prolong my stay<br />
indefinitely until things became safe again. The Red Cross flew in<br />
thousands of helpers from across the USA, who did sterling work.<br />
Despite the emergency situation I was determined to take part in<br />
the New York City Marathon. But the event was canceled at short<br />
notice because the route would have passed through badly damaged<br />
areas in which many had lost their lives. A group of young people<br />
then organized a Run Anyway Marathon via facebook. The run followed<br />
the original route of the first NYC Marathon of 1970 through<br />
Central Park. About 20,000 runners took part. The Run Anyway<br />
Marathon became a celebration of hope and joy. The runners<br />
Englerth<br />
donated money and food to the victims of Sandy. New Yorkers<br />
actively supported the runners’ efforts by cheering them on and<br />
providing them with food and drink along the way.<br />
After eleven days, when the electricity finally came back on in our<br />
house in New Jersey, I joined a team of marathon runners from<br />
New York who I’d befriended to help out in the worst affected areas<br />
in Brooklyn and Staten Island. The organizer was the US “Marathon<br />
Maniac” Hideki Kinoshita. We wore our orange-colored marathon<br />
shirts and dubbed ourselves Team Orange – a name the press picked<br />
up on in the following weeks.<br />
The destruction in the flooded coastal areas of New York City was<br />
heart-rending. It was like a war zone. The first day I worked in a<br />
donation center in Far Rockaway, where I was in charge of accepting<br />
and distributing countless truckloads of food. I don’t think I’ve ever<br />
worked so hard in my whole life. It was also touching to witness the<br />
helpfulness and generosity of New Yorkers.<br />
Team Orange spent the next few days on Staten Island, where we<br />
ripped out plasterboard and insulation in damaged houses to prevent<br />
mildew from forming. Despite wearing dust masks, we soon all<br />
developed stubborn coughs. We probably inhaled loads of asbestos<br />
dust and toxins, but when you see people in trouble, you just get on<br />
with the job.<br />
Team Orange was a motley crew of marathon runners that became<br />
a symbol of selfless altruism. In addition to their work, the team<br />
members collected over 4000 dollars in donations for storm victims.<br />
In the despair following the disaster, Team Orange became a guiding<br />
star in the darkness. Shortly before my flight back to Germany I took<br />
part in a 60-kilometer ultramarathon in New York City. After the trials<br />
and tribulations of the previous weeks, it was the easiest and most<br />
relaxing day of my entire stay.<br />
ENGLERTH.JUERGEN@ALLIANZ.DE<br />
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Australia<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Elephants in the outback<br />
Shutterstock<br />
This year, Australia experienced one<br />
of its hottest summers in a decade<br />
with record temperatures of nearly<br />
50°C in places. The heat wave was<br />
barely over when Tropical Storm<br />
Oswald caused major flooding in parts<br />
of Queensland. The insurance industry<br />
got off relatively lightly.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
Talk about good timing: in January, a man in Tasmania<br />
rang <strong>Allianz</strong> Australia and took out a home insurance<br />
policy just as a bush fire was threatening to engulf his<br />
property. The embargo by which the insurer usually<br />
prevents policies from being taken out in the face of<br />
imminent danger was not yet in place. Shortly afterwards<br />
the man’s house went up in flames. No doubt<br />
he was one of <strong>Allianz</strong>’s satisfied customers.<br />
Nicholas Scofield, <strong>Allianz</strong> Australia’s spokesman, remembers<br />
this episode quite vividly. Not everyone is that lucky<br />
in a disaster. The bushfire, which raged through New<br />
South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania in January, caused<br />
less damage though than the dramatic images on TV<br />
might have indicated. Most people and their property<br />
were not at risk, says Scofield. “The fires were mainly<br />
limited to forests and uninhabited areas.”<br />
That was not the case four years ago when numerous<br />
houses were destroyed by bushfires in Victoria. “Back<br />
then losses for the Australian insurer totaled over one<br />
billion Australian dollars,” recalls Jenny Lambert, general<br />
manager of Claims Services at <strong>Allianz</strong> Australia. This year,<br />
according to the Insurance Council of Australia, only<br />
AUD 120 million (EUR 97 million) was paid out, most of<br />
it – just under AUD 90 million – in Tasmania. <strong>Allianz</strong> had<br />
to stump up for 72 cases with total insured losses of<br />
about AUD 6 million (nearly EUR 5 million).<br />
Cyclone Oswald in January this year was another story.<br />
It brought with it such heavy rain that streams in<br />
Queensland and New South Wales swelled to fast-flowing<br />
rivers, which broke over dams and flooded numerous<br />
settlements. Insured losses alone amounted to almost<br />
AUD 850 million (EUR 675 million), AUD 68 million<br />
(EUR 54 million) of which have been paid out by <strong>Allianz</strong>.<br />
Of all the natural events in Australia, flooding has the<br />
greatest damage potential, ahead of hailstorms and<br />
tropical storms. According to the Insurance Council of<br />
Australia, flooding has caused AUD 4.5 billion of damage<br />
in the past decade. When large parts of Queensland<br />
were deluged by a hundred-year flood in 2011 (insured<br />
losses: AUD 2.4 billion), many insurance companies,<br />
including <strong>Allianz</strong>, placed a temporary embargo on<br />
new business in the worst-affected storm zones.<br />
Pulling the plug<br />
Last year, Queensland’s biggest insurer Suncorp also<br />
pulled the plug and announced that it was no longer<br />
issuing any new home insurance policies in the towns<br />
of Emerald and Roma, which are regularly under water.<br />
And premiums for existing policies were immediately<br />
increased by as much as tenfold. In two years the company<br />
had paid out AUD 150 million in flood claims in the<br />
two small towns – compared with a premium income<br />
of just AUD 4 million.<br />
The insurance industry had been calling on the state<br />
for years to provide more funding for dikes and dams<br />
to protect property. But their pleas fell on deaf ears.<br />
However, following the severe flood damage in January<br />
this year, the government in Canberra reacted. In the<br />
next two years, AUD 100 million will be invested in flood<br />
mitigation projects – a measure which, according to Rob<br />
Whelan, CEO of the Insurance Council of Australia, will<br />
have a palpable effect on insurance premiums.<br />
That remains to be seen. The penchant of Australians<br />
to settle in high-risk areas might undermine that hope:<br />
90 percent of the population live along the coast. Waterfront<br />
properties in New South Wales and Queensland<br />
are particularly popular. “Despite the known risks, more<br />
and more people are building homes there, where tropical<br />
storms rage on a regular basis,” says Jenny Lambert.<br />
Of course, when a tropical storm rips the roof off your<br />
house, a dike isn’t going to be of much use.<br />
Local councils in the affected areas haven’t been particularly<br />
helpful either in terms of active defense measures,<br />
reports Bob Gelling, Claims manager at <strong>Allianz</strong> Australia<br />
in Brisbane. “Settlements have been built next to rivers<br />
and in depressions,” says Gelling. “Of course they will<br />
all be under water when the next hundred-year storm<br />
strikes.” And living areas of many of the typical Queens-<br />
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ASIEN AUSTRALIA<br />
Asia<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Nicholas Scofield<br />
all pictures: Ibrahim<br />
“Tough<br />
competition”<br />
Jenny Lambert<br />
A new heat record of 48.5 degrees was recorded in Sydney in January.<br />
The authorities declared it the worst heatwave in over a decade<br />
There was a time when Western managers became starry-eyed<br />
whenever China was mentioned. Although not all their cherished<br />
dreams have come true, many still regard China as a market of the<br />
future. We talked to Uwe Michel, head of Insurance Growth Markets<br />
Asia about <strong>Allianz</strong>’s strategy in the Middle Kingdom.<br />
Stern<br />
INTERVIEW: FRANK STERN<br />
has at least devised a solution for this plague: elephants.<br />
They could just eat the grass, which they know from<br />
Africa, thus reducing the risk of fire, says the professor.<br />
landers, houses that should be built on stilts because of<br />
the danger of flooding, have been extended at ground<br />
level – with the councils’ permission.<br />
Dry as tinder<br />
As the bushfires at the beginning of the year have shown,<br />
inland areas are not immune to risk either, particularly<br />
when a wet period of strong plant growth is followed by<br />
an extreme heat wave. “There was a lot of scrub around,”<br />
says Bob Gelling. “It was as dry as tinder.” Imported from<br />
Africa as animal feed, savannah grass, which can grow<br />
up to four meters high and spread like wildfire, so to<br />
speak, additionally acted as a fire accelerant in the outback.<br />
David Bowman from the University of Tasmania,<br />
Australia has some experience when it comes to introducing<br />
non-native animals and plant species, and for<br />
the most part it has not been good. In the 19th century<br />
the British shipped in camels from the other end of the<br />
earth to serve as beasts of burden while exploring the<br />
fifth continent. When railways and trucks took over<br />
transport in the 20th century, the animals were set free.<br />
There are now about a million wild camels, which are<br />
regarded as a threat to the indigenous fauna and the<br />
Australian landscape. Maybe elephants aren’t such a<br />
good idea after all.<br />
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ASIA<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> in China<br />
Beijing<br />
Liaoning<br />
Roth<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
Shandong<br />
Sichuan<br />
Jiangsu<br />
Shanghai<br />
Chongqing<br />
Zhejiang<br />
Guangdong<br />
Uwe Michel<br />
Hong Kong<br />
Mr. Michel, the One <strong>Allianz</strong> in China Initiative<br />
was recently launched under your<br />
leadership. What’s the story behind it?<br />
We want to showcase ourselves to the Chinese<br />
public as a company that can offer the<br />
entire gamut of financial services. We have<br />
ten units in China, from Euler Hermes to<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Global Assistance and Pimco. None<br />
of the foreign competitors can boast such a<br />
broad product range and we need to make<br />
this clearer in the public’s mind. Until now<br />
the units have operated largely independently<br />
of each other. The aim of the initiative<br />
is to generate more profitable business<br />
and the key to that is better cooperation<br />
and concerted action in our dealings with<br />
clients. We want <strong>Allianz</strong> in China to become<br />
synonymous with financial solidity – just as<br />
Mercedes stands for solidity in automobile<br />
manufacturing.<br />
Western companies complain about<br />
difficult market access. What obstacles<br />
does <strong>Allianz</strong> have to overcome in China?<br />
Tough competition for one. The former state<br />
insurers are still the dominant force in the<br />
market. Regulatory restrictions are also a<br />
problem. Foreign suppliers have a 4.8 percent<br />
share in the life insurance market and<br />
just a 1.2 percent slice of the nonlife segment.<br />
The supervisory authorities don’t let<br />
foreign insurers near the really rich pickings,<br />
although the Communist Party has now<br />
promised a measure of liberalization.<br />
Not for the first time.<br />
I’m not going to be naïve about it, nor will<br />
I rule out the possibility. Chinese insurance<br />
companies have become so strong that<br />
they won’t have to tighten their belts even<br />
without the protective hand of the state.<br />
In a threshold country like China you need<br />
a healthy dose of optimism, otherwise<br />
there’d be no point in entering the market<br />
at all. And you need to be in it for the long<br />
haul. The time horizons in China are different<br />
to what we’re perhaps used to.<br />
Does One <strong>Allianz</strong> in China mean that<br />
Munich is picking up the reins?<br />
Not at all. One <strong>Allianz</strong> in China is an initiative<br />
of the ten <strong>Allianz</strong> units in China. We see it as<br />
our job to bring them closer together. They<br />
should be seen in the marketplace as a single<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong>. But the reins will remain in the hands<br />
of the local Group companies. They know the<br />
market, their clients and their needs. What<br />
we’re providing is support. China works from<br />
the top down. That’s why our executives<br />
and experts should visit more often. In the<br />
future we need to clarify what we have to<br />
offer the Chinese and expand our role as a<br />
knowledge provider in order to enhance our<br />
brand image.<br />
What does that mean specifically?<br />
We’re going to send our experts to China<br />
to give presentations, meet with decisionmakers<br />
and get the media on board. Recently,<br />
for instance, our chief economist, Michael<br />
Heise, traveled to China to hold a lecture<br />
on the future of the euro and the European<br />
Union. This was well received in the press.<br />
We don’t want to spend more money on<br />
marketing – that would be ineffective in<br />
such a big country with so many megacities<br />
– but we do want to put our knowhow<br />
to better use, for instance in the fields of<br />
demography and infrastructure projects.<br />
Who’s the target group in China?<br />
The main target group is the growing middle<br />
classes in the cities, now numbering 300 million<br />
people. They’re increasingly interested<br />
in insuring their wealth. This opens up<br />
opportunities in all areas, particularly in life<br />
and health insurance. We’ve just set up a<br />
health insurance company with our partner<br />
CPIC. But there are also opportunities for<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS).<br />
China wants to expand its green technology –<br />
which is understandable given the country’s<br />
huge environmental problems – and Germany<br />
is a leading player in this area. We will<br />
of course support our German insurance<br />
clients in this respect as well but we’re also<br />
setting our sights on Chinese companies.<br />
China is a huge market. Are people<br />
even aware of a foreign supplier like<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> there?<br />
We’re strong in certain niches where the<br />
Chinese can learn from us. Health insurance<br />
is a typical example where the Chinese lack<br />
experience. Private health insurance still<br />
accounts for only a small fraction of healthcare<br />
expenditure. We can contribute expertise<br />
in terms of products, risk management<br />
and IT. CPIC, with whom we’ve set up the<br />
joint venture, is contributing its sales network<br />
and contacts with state agencies. I’m<br />
optimistic that we can secure a slice of the<br />
pie in China. Of course we need to ensure<br />
that the gains from this knowledge transfer<br />
will benefit all parties concerned.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> will be the minority partner in the<br />
joint venture. Is that a paradigm shift?<br />
It’s quite a step for <strong>Allianz</strong> to be the minority<br />
partner in a joint venture, as is the case in<br />
the health insurance company we’ve just set<br />
up. But we realized that we wouldn’t stand<br />
a chance if we entered the market alone.<br />
So we asked ourselves three key questions:<br />
What is the added value for <strong>Allianz</strong>? How<br />
big is the risk as the minority partner? And<br />
will we be able to take any profit we make<br />
out of China?<br />
Other companies have decided to<br />
cut back or give up their commitment<br />
in China. Is that also an option for<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong>?<br />
It’s always an option. Of course we must<br />
ensure that we don’t fall by the wayside.<br />
The question is whether we can do something<br />
constructive in China with the money<br />
that our shareholders put at our disposal.<br />
I’m certain that we’re in a position to do<br />
so, and One <strong>Allianz</strong> in China can make an<br />
important contribution. Needless to say,<br />
clients won’t take out insurance just because<br />
we’ve launched this initiative. They’ll do<br />
so because Global Automotive has a good<br />
product range or because AGCS offers good<br />
cover. One <strong>Allianz</strong> in China aims to facilitate<br />
information exchange between the subsidiaries.<br />
They need to discuss who’s got which<br />
clients and how the units can cooperate in<br />
supporting them. Customer managers from<br />
the various <strong>Allianz</strong> units are already teaming<br />
up to approach major clients.<br />
How’s that working out?<br />
The response has been extremely positive.<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> China, Global Automotive and<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Global Assistance have already<br />
signed contracts with an international<br />
telematics company. The premium income<br />
amounts to ten million euros. And we have<br />
many other companies on our target list.<br />
As <strong>Allianz</strong> is a European provider, isn’t<br />
the financial crisis throwing a wrench in<br />
the works?<br />
Europe is no longer seen as a bastion of<br />
security, and naturally the state of the euro<br />
crops up in every conversation. But <strong>Allianz</strong> is<br />
still regarded as a stable company in China,<br />
and our good rating helps a lot. This is exactly<br />
the strong image that we want to convey to<br />
the public. It will also enhance our attractiveness<br />
as an employer. Employee loyalty is an<br />
on going issue for us in China.<br />
Are people running away?<br />
We have a very high staff turnover. It’s hard<br />
to find good employees in China, and even<br />
harder to keep them. We train them and<br />
then they’re poached by the competition. In<br />
April, we had our first internal China job fair.<br />
More than 40 Chinese speaking employees<br />
from different <strong>Allianz</strong> departments who can<br />
see themselves working in China took part.<br />
That gives me hope. We have to get the<br />
message across that <strong>Allianz</strong> is a top-notch<br />
company that is listed on the Fortune 100<br />
Index and that, thanks to its wide-ranging<br />
activities, offers exciting advancement and<br />
career opportunities. Then we can get to<br />
grips with staff turnover. We need to be<br />
seen on the market as a single multifaceted<br />
unit. This is precisely the aim of One <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
in China. I’m convinced that we can adapt<br />
to the Chinese market and be successful.<br />
How far should adaption go?<br />
It’s got nothing to do with currying favor.<br />
It’s about understanding the market so that<br />
we can put our knowledge to good use.<br />
The Chinese want to work with us precisely<br />
because we’re German, because we’re European.<br />
We’ve created a good base in China in<br />
the past few years, also in terms of business<br />
licenses. But now it’s finally time to reap the<br />
harvest.<br />
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Society<br />
Latouri, EAC-l’Boulvart<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
a medium that is sure to gain in significance.” Thoss<br />
stresses that the aim of the Foundation’s commitment to<br />
the project is reciprocity. He hopes that the joint project<br />
will not only empower civil society but also usher in new<br />
cooperation agreements.<br />
Casablanca<br />
Boulevard<br />
of freedom<br />
MICHAEL GRIMM<br />
Tanger<br />
Rabat<br />
SPAIN<br />
MOROCCO<br />
Ten years ago heavy metal was still condemned<br />
in Morocco as the devil’s work. One hard-rock<br />
band even landed in jail back then. These days,<br />
heavy metal musicians are among the avantgarde<br />
of the country’s culture scene, thanks<br />
not least to the internet radio station Boulevard.<br />
The <strong>Allianz</strong> Cultural Foundation is sponsoring<br />
the project.<br />
ALGERIA<br />
Music helps us convey what we can’t always express in<br />
words. It describes an attitude to life; it’s part of one’s<br />
personal identity. In Casablanca in 2003, a heavy metal<br />
band found out how powerful music can really be when<br />
14 young men were arrested for endangering the Islamic<br />
faith. They were accused of practicing satanism and sentenced<br />
to between one month and one year in prison.<br />
Ten years on, in the spring of 2013, one of the convicted<br />
band members is preparing a rock and heavy-metal program<br />
for Casablanca’s internet radio station Boulevard.<br />
This newly created voice for musicians, journalists and<br />
audio artists was initiated by the charitable organization<br />
EAC-L’Boulvart (Education Artistique et Culturelle –<br />
L’Boulvart). Since 1999 it has developed a platform for<br />
free spirits from the worlds of music, culture journalism,<br />
film, design, fashion and street art. Morocco’s culture<br />
scene is now synonymous with EAC-L’Boulvart, and the<br />
annual L’Boulvart music festival is the most important<br />
music and youth culture event in North Africa. The web<br />
radio station is finally giving artists and journalists a<br />
permanent platform.<br />
“We hope that the online radio will help us solve our<br />
infrastructure problems,” says Chadwane Bensalmai.<br />
The 36-year-old journalist and her colleagues Hicham<br />
Bahou and Mohamed Mehari form the backbone of EAC<br />
Christine Auerbach of Bavarian on3-radio (back row, 2nd from right) at a meeting<br />
of web radio broadcasters from Morocco, Germany and France in Casablanca in March<br />
L’Boulvart. Since 2009, the radio station has had its own<br />
multifunctional base. It is located just outside the center<br />
of Casablanca in a business park adjacent to several technology<br />
companies – hence the name Le Boultek.<br />
The Le Boultek culture center brings together everything<br />
that makes the hearts of radio journalists and musicians<br />
beat faster: recording studios, conference and rehearsal<br />
rooms and even a concert hall that seats 200. This is pure<br />
luxury: rooms for rehearsals and concerts are still scarce<br />
all over Morocco. “The culture scene has a hard time here,”<br />
says Nadine Müseler from the German Goethe Institute<br />
in Morocco. The art historian from Cologne has been<br />
working at the Institute in Rabat for the past five years.<br />
In 2009, the Goethe Institute and the Institut Français in<br />
Rabat applied to the German-French Fund for Culture<br />
Programs in Third Countries for basic funding for Radio<br />
Boulevard. The Arab Spring in parts of the Maghreb<br />
finally paved the way. The money funded initial training<br />
sessions with European internet radio stations. Basic<br />
technical equipment followed.<br />
In 2013 the “Online Radio: Culture across all Borders”<br />
project gained another supporter – the <strong>Allianz</strong> Cultural<br />
Foundation. Its head, Michael Thoss, was convinced by<br />
“the combination of trans-Mediterranean networking<br />
of European and North African online radio stations –<br />
Christine Auerbach has already benefited from the project.<br />
The journalist from on3-radio, the digital youth radio<br />
platform of Bavarian Radio, attended a network meeting<br />
in Casablanca in early March. Online radio broadcasters<br />
from Germany and France met at the Boultek to exchange<br />
views. Auerbach was particularly impressed by the drive<br />
and enthusiasm with which her hosts got the new medium<br />
up and running. “They just rolled up their sleeves and<br />
did it. You can feel the energy,” she reported after her<br />
trip. It was like Grand Central Station, she said. And at<br />
the center of it was Chadwane Bensalmai, buzzing with<br />
energy. “There was a great feeling of togetherness,”<br />
recalls Auerbach.<br />
The hounding of heavy metal bands finally appears<br />
to be a thing of the past. What was once regarded as<br />
a sacrilege has become an art form. Hard on the heels<br />
of the training sessions, workshops and the network<br />
meeting in the spring of 2013, the first pilot programs<br />
were ready for broadcasting. In one of the programs,<br />
Moroccan jazz legend Jauk Armal and the emerging<br />
artist Yassine Tirassi wax lyrical about their music.<br />
Jazz gives you a feeling of freedom – it’s inimitable,<br />
says Armal.<br />
The radio station has been on air since May, and the remix<br />
of old and new has proved popular. The new sounds have<br />
even been well received by the royal family: King Mohammed<br />
himself has pledged his support to Radio Boulevard.<br />
The next meeting with like-minded artists will take place<br />
in the fall. Then there’ll be further networking with online<br />
radio stations from Spain and Italy, and a women’s internet<br />
radio station in Cairo.<br />
To read the long version of this interview please go to<br />
HTTP://KNOWLEDGE.ALLIANZ.COM/JOURNAL<br />
WWW.BOULEVARD.MA<br />
WWW.GOETHE.DE/MAROKKO<br />
HTTPS://KULTURSTIFTUNG.ALLIANZ.DE<br />
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SOCIETY<br />
Shutterstock<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
“In the USA there’s extreme<br />
unease with regard to Islam,<br />
but Soliya has taught me to<br />
see people as individuals and<br />
to find out what they think<br />
instead of tarring everyone<br />
with the same brush.”<br />
American student<br />
SOLIYA<br />
Soliya was set up ten years ago with the aim of<br />
providing young people from Muslim and Western<br />
countries with intercultural experiences. The NGO<br />
with offices in New York and Cairo relies entirely<br />
on the internet to put students from all over the<br />
world in virtual contact with each other.<br />
Over 100 universities worldwide are now involved,<br />
and many of them have integrated the online<br />
training program Connect into their syllabus.<br />
Enemy on the screen<br />
Many participants are wary initially. Just don’t say anything wrong! Don’t tread<br />
on anyone’s toes! When students from Western countries first meet students<br />
from the Middle East in the Soliya online seminars, everyone is extremely polite.<br />
But the soft-line approach doesn’t last very long.<br />
FRANK STERN<br />
“I used to think that the West didn’t care<br />
about other people, particularly people in<br />
the Middle East.”<br />
Egyptian student<br />
The internet is a dangerous tool. It can drive a wedge<br />
between people and peoples. It can reinforce prejudices<br />
and become a vehicle for disinformation and hate.<br />
But it can also connect people. It can resolve issues and<br />
create trust. The internet is the disease and the cure –<br />
depending on who uses it.<br />
The terrorist attack on New York had occurred just<br />
two years previously when Lucas Welch set up Soliya in<br />
2003 to build bridges through intercultural exchanges.<br />
While the world was exhausting itself in the Clash of<br />
Civilizations, the American, a former TV producer for<br />
the broadcaster ABC and media lecturer at the Bir Zeit<br />
University in Ramallah, was developing a concept for<br />
understanding and conciliation. It’s not by chance that<br />
Soliya is a combination of the Latin sol (sun) and the<br />
Arabic word for light.<br />
Soliya uses the internet to bring students together<br />
from various countries via video conferencing. The<br />
10-week Connect program is now running in over<br />
100 universities in 27 countries – from Egypt to Indone -<br />
sia and from the USA to Switzerland. Some institutions<br />
have even included Connect in their regular study<br />
program. The <strong>Allianz</strong> Foundation of North America<br />
became a sponsor of Soliya last year. “It’s about understanding,<br />
overcoming prejudices and respecting each<br />
other,” says Foundation head Christopher Worthley.<br />
“A goal that we’re also committed to.”<br />
The internet as a bridge between peoples and cultures<br />
that could hardly be more different from each other:<br />
Osama Madani, English professor at Menoufia University<br />
in Shibin El Kom, 75 kilometers from Cairo, witnessed<br />
how his students were on the defensive when they first<br />
sat at the screen in front of Jewish students from the<br />
USA – effectively their arch enemies – and how in the<br />
course of the discussions each found common ground<br />
WWW.SOLIYA.ORG<br />
or at least an understanding of their counterpart’s<br />
attitudes. “By the end of the semester the mindset of<br />
many of my students had completely changed,” says<br />
Madani. Meanwhile, the list of students who want to<br />
take part in the program has grown ever longer.<br />
Moderators supervise the online discussions to overcome<br />
initial anxieties or to avoid overheated debates.<br />
“Sometimes they even have trouble getting a discussion<br />
going because the participants are just too polite<br />
to each other,” explains Soliya CEO Shamil Idriss. On<br />
the other hand, there’s no shortage of topics to ignite<br />
an argument between the West and the Middle East.<br />
And in the course of the semester nothing is taboo –<br />
whether Islamist terrorism, Islamophobia, the relationship<br />
between religion and the state, the role of women<br />
in society or homosexuality.<br />
The difference in their worldviews is regularly demonstrated<br />
when the participants are asked to edit a news<br />
item based on raw footage provided by the US wireservice<br />
Associated Press and the Arabic broadcaster<br />
Al Jazeera in a balanced manner. Up to that point the<br />
online discussions may have been somewhat hesitant,<br />
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<strong>Allianz</strong> Group <strong>Journal</strong> 2/2013<br />
© 2011, Scott Adams, Inc./Distr. Universal Uclick/Distr. Bulls<br />
should be in a position to overcome deep schisms in<br />
the world. Shamil Idriss is convinced that schools and<br />
universities provide the path to that goal.<br />
but when the participants view the two-minute clip<br />
by their fellow students on the Middle East conflict from<br />
their different perspectives, reticence soon flies out<br />
the window.<br />
If such exchanges across ideological and cultural gulfs<br />
were a standard part of university education, and if as<br />
many young people as possible in Western and Islamic<br />
countries grew up with this schooling – a critical mass<br />
who see their differences as something to be worked<br />
out and not as a reason to go to war – then, says Idriss,<br />
a pastor burning a Koran would no longer cause such<br />
outrage and blinkered young men wouldn’t fly planes<br />
into buildings. “If we could reach a million students<br />
a year,” he adds, “they would be changing the world<br />
already.”<br />
The Soliya seminars bring together people who would<br />
normally do their utmost to avoid each other. They range<br />
from atheists from Amsterdam to evangelical Christians<br />
from Kentucky and Muslim Brothers from Cairo. And<br />
maybe that’s the best service that Soliya has to offer:<br />
The students talk to each other about God and the world.<br />
They discuss and they argue – but they don’t smash<br />
each other’s heads in.<br />
In times when fundamentalists on both sides incite<br />
enmity and hate and the internet is used to promote<br />
those ends, Soliya provides the technology to make<br />
young people less susceptible to such extremes. Armed<br />
with intercultural experience, the capacity to respect<br />
other opinions and to question their own attitudes, they<br />
“To begin with I didn’t want to take part<br />
in the Connect program. My professor<br />
urged me to do so. In retrospect, I’m<br />
honestly glad that I did it.”<br />
Palestinian student<br />
Readers’ Forum<br />
If you liked or even disliked any items in the<br />
<strong>Journal</strong>, we would like to hear from you.<br />
Your feedback will help us to improve our<br />
content, so all comments and suggestions for<br />
improvement are welcome. Please send to:<br />
journal@allianz.com<br />
<strong>Allianz</strong> <strong>Journal</strong><br />
Königinstr. 28, D-80802 Munich<br />
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→ <strong>Journal</strong><br />
http://knowledge.allianz.com/journal<br />
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Deadline for submissions for the <strong>Allianz</strong><br />
<strong>Journal</strong> 3/2013 is August 30, 2013.<br />
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