talanx group annual report 2011 en

4 Talanx Group. Annual Report 2011
Ladies and gentlemen,
The 2011 business year was a year with bright and dark sides for the
Talanx Group, but all in all it can be summed up as “highly satisfactory.”
On the one hand, the Group had to cope with a very high
claims burden, on the other the results it achieved were among the
best in its history.
The general environment for the insurance industry was anything
but propitious in 2011: never before had there been such an
accumulation of costly natural catastrophes, not to mention the
unimaginable human suffering they caused. Only once before had
the insurance industry had to shoulder a higher burden due to extreme
natural events within a single year. This series of large-scale
losses impacted our Group to the tune of over one billion euros.
However, in-house projects put a further strain on the situation:
For instance, in 2011 we began to invest in building up clientfocused,
efficient structures in our German retail business. This is
intended to put us in a position to secure profitable market shares
on our home market, a project with which we are well on the way.